Tuesday, 31 October 2023
Bills
Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023
Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023
Council’s amendments
The SPEAKER (12:43): I have received a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to the Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023 with amendments.
Ordered that amendments be taken into consideration immediately.
Message from Council relating to following amendments considered:
1. Clause 17, line 17, omit “As soon as practicable” and insert “Within 14 days”.
2. Clause 74, after line 13 insert –
“(1A) The Chief Executive Officer must ensure the annual report includes a summary of any advice the Board has received from the Operational Committee in relation to a matter specified in section 55(2)(f) and (g).”.
3. Clause 83, line 15, before “Subject” insert “(1)”.
4. Clause 83, lines 19 and 20, omit “on Triple Zero Victoria’s website” and insert “in accordance with subsection (2)”.
5. Clause 83, after line 20, insert –
“(2) Data referred to in subsection (1) must be published on Triple Zero Victoria’s website annually or at intervals set by the Emergency Management Commissioner.”.
That the amendments be agreed to.
The government has made a number of sensible amendments to this bill in the other place which I wish to bring to the attention of the house. The first, amendment 1, relates to the publication of ministerial directions and amends clause 17(3). It alters the requirement for the chief executive officer to publish on Triple Zero Victoria’s website written directions issued by the minister from ‘as soon as practicable’ to ‘within 14 days’. This is a small change to promote the timely publication of written directions issued by the minister.
Government amendment 2 relates to the publication of advice to the operational committee. This second amendment, to clause 74, followed consultation with the crossbench about a mechanism to increase transparency while not jeopardising the intent of the government’s ESTA reform program, which is to build a genuine partnership between the new entity – Triple Zero Victoria – and emergency services organisations as represented through the operational committee. The amendment requires the Triple Zero Victoria annual report to include a summary of the advice provided by the operational committee on how Triple Zero Victoria and the emergency services organisations have supported each other in their respective functions. The government recognises this change will provide an assurance to the Victorian community that Triple Zero Victoria is listening and engaging with the operational committee, as is intended by this bill.
Government amendments 3, 4 and 5 relate to the timely publication of data behind new performance standards. The bill requires Triple Zero Victoria to publish data relating to the new outcome-based performance standards that will be set by the emergency management commissioner. These amendments to clause 83 clarify when and at what intervals this data must be published on Triple Zero Victoria’s website. This is a commonsense approach requiring information to be published annually or at intervals set by the emergency management commissioner. These intervals will allow sufficient time for trends in the data to be identified and provide certainty to the Victorian community that the data behind the new performance standards is available for scrutiny in a timely way. I commend the amended bill to the house.
Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (12:47): I too just wish to make comment on the amendments to the Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023. I would make the observation that the various opposition parties came to the government with some much-needed improvements, and we think these improvements will in fact make it a better bill. One of the concerns that the opposition and others had at the time was that the changes in the Triple Zero Victoria Bill were brought about by some very, very tragic failures – catastrophic failures, actually – in the system that led to the recorded and attributed deaths of some 33 Victorians because the system was not working as it should. So in order to make sure of the improvements that the Triple Zero Bill will bring about, it is important that Victorians have great confidence that when we are recording data and recording information those things are promptly brought to the public’s and the Parliament’s attention. Moving it just from ‘as soon as practicable’ – which of course will be very convenient for the government of the day – to ‘within 14 days’ really puts a critical time frame around the importance of reporting these key indicators on ambulance arrival times, pick-up times, call response times and so on.
The opposition parties wanted the government to go a little bit further and actually be quite clear about some of the data that would be reported on. We did not quite get those changes through, but the fact that what the government has agreed to do will be reported relatively promptly, within 14 days, onto websites and other publicly available sources will give some confidence to the community that elements of this bill are quite robust. So the opposition supports at this time the changes made to the Triple Zero bill.
Steve McGHIE (Melton) (12:50): I rise to speak on the amendments to the Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023, and of course we know how important this bill is. The government has made a number of sensible amendments to this bill in the other place, which have come back to this chamber. I will just quickly go through those:
Clause 17, line 17, omit “As soon as practicable” and insert “Within 14 days”.
Clause 74, after line 13 insert –
… The Chief Executive Officer must ensure the annual report includes a summary of any advice the Board has received from the Operational Committee in relation to a matter specified in section 55(2)(f) and (g).”.
Clause 83, line 15, before “Subject” insert “(1)”.
Clause 83, lines 19 and 20, omit “on Triple Zero Victoria’s website” and insert “in accordance with subsection (2)”.
Clause 83, after line 20, insert –
“(2) Data referred to in subsection (1) must be published on Triple Zero Victoria’s website annually or at intervals set by the Emergency Management Commissioner.”.
Again, these are sensible and important amendments to this bill, and I commend those amendments to the house.
Motion agreed to.
The SPEAKER: A message will now be sent to the Legislative Council informing them of the house’s decision.