Thursday, 28 November 2024

Bills

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Paramedic Practitioners) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (14:51): I rise to contribute to the debate on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Paramedic Practitioners) Bill 2024. This bill represents a landmark moment in the evolution of health care in Victoria. It establishes paramedic practitioners, a pioneering initiative that positions Victoria as the first jurisdiction in Australia to implement this model of care. This is a historic milestone for Victoria. Before the last election the Allan Labor government committed to bringing paramedic practitioners to Victoria, promising to put 25 practitioners on the road in rural and regional areas by 2026. Today we are taking a decisive step forward in fulfilling that promise.

This bill will enable paramedic practitioners to work autonomously to provide urgent care in the field without needing to transport patients to emergency departments. Once graduated, they will be able to treat conditions that commonly see people visit hospitals, including urinary catheter care, wound care and closure, minor infections, dislocations and fractures. This will have profound impacts, including reducing pressure on our emergency departments, improving access to primary and urgent care and supporting better health outcomes for rural and regional Victorians. It is a practical step. It is step that makes sense, and it goes to our Labor government’s vision for the future for health care in our state.

In order to make this vision a reality the 2023–24 budget allocated $20.1 million to establish this initiative. We have also worked closely with Monash University to launch Australia’s first-ever paramedic practitioners masters degree, ensuring these practitioners are equipped with the skills and confidence to operate independently. The program welcomed its inaugural cohort of 30 students this year, with a second intake set to begin early next year. Scholarships have also been made available to support students, reflecting our commitment to building a highly skilled and diverse workforce that reflects the Victorian community.

We know that Victoria is home to world-class health workers. They are leaders, incredibly skilled, agile and willing to take on more challenging roles. They deserve the opportunity to utilise their full capabilities to improve people’s access to health care, particularly for our rural and regional communities. Paramedics are amazing. In the most complex of situations they pull off some superhuman stuff with an enormous amount of dedication, compassion and resilience. One of my husband’s and my closest family friends, indeed he was our best man, worked as a paramedic in Victoria for many years, and he and his partner continue to work in Victoria’s healthcare system. We have heard many stories from James about his time on the road and the many and varied situations he has been thrown into. The adrenaline in those situations is immense, sometimes ending in elation and sometimes in heartbreak.

What is clear is that paramedics in Victoria are driven by a commitment to deliver the very best patient-centred care, and this bill gives them the opportunity to do even more. It allows paramedic practitioners to provide more comprehensive support and care to patients, reducing demand on hospital emergency departments and creating more opportunities for home visits and treatment of housebound patients. This initiative draws on successful international models in countries such as the UK, Canada and the Netherlands. It reflects our government’s belief that healthcare workers, including nurses, midwives and paramedics, should be empowered to work to their full scope of practice. We have already taken steps to support endorsed midwives to work to their full scope of practice by repealing an outdated list which limited their prescribing powers. By doing this we have enabled endorsed midwives to finally prescribe for conditions commonly experienced during pregnancy and labour – such as heartburn and acid reflux – and pain relief without needing to go to a GP.

This reform also improves access to medical abortion by removing barriers to prescribing, making it safer and easier for women, including in rural and regional areas of Victoria, to access abortion services closer to home, which is an essential part of the work that the Minister for Health and I are undertaking as part of our women’s health reforms in Victoria.

To the specifics of the bill, we are legislating to define a paramedic practitioner as a registered paramedic who has completed postgraduate studies and meets the required experience criteria. It gives them equivalent authority to nurse practitioners, allowing them to prescribe medications, administer treatment and access the SafeScript database to ensure safe prescribing practices.

The Allan Labor government has consistently demonstrated its unwavering support for our hardworking paramedics. Since coming into office we have invested over $2 billion in ambulance services, growing Ambulance Victoria’s on-road workforce by more than 50 per cent, adding over 2200 paramedics to our roads since the Liberals were last in office. In the past three years alone we have recruited over 1300 paramedics to meet surging demand, which is now 30 per cent higher than prepandemic levels. In fact Victoria now has more registered paramedics than any other jurisdiction. This is in stark contrast to when the Liberals were in government, with Victoria’s response times the worst across mainland Australia. Victorians remember the chaos the health system experienced under the previous Liberal government. Response times were declining year-on-year, and in the face of this reality they chose to stop releasing the data altogether. Victorians knew things were going terribly wrong when they chose to hide the evidence. Their contempt for paramedics was exemplified by the shameful behaviour of the then health minister, who accused paramedics of staging photos and referring to them as ‘militant’ and ‘thugs’. Demonising this critical workforce is and was unfathomable, and Victorians would not stand for it. It took us two years to clean up the mess that they left, but we ended their war on the paramedics and ambulance response times improved to 80 per cent of code 1 cases responded to in 15 minutes. It shows how our continuous investments in this critical workforce have led to better tangible outcomes for all Victorians.

Today our paramedics are dealing with record demand, but we remain on the right path with our record investments, with the last quarter showing a 16-second improvement on the previous quarter. To help paramedics respond to increasing demand this government has doubled the capacity of the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, which has now treated over 400,000 patients with an 85 per cent diversion rate. My own family has used this service, and I can tell you that it is absolutely brilliant. Being able to receive care at home virtually and freeing up ambulances for critical cases is another example of an initiative that just makes good policy sense.

We have also invested in medium-acuity transport services and expanded secondary triage, which redirects 20 per cent of 000 calls to alternative care pathways, relieving pressure on emergency departments, and we are focused on delivering state-of-the-art facilities for paramedics. Since 2015, we have invested $279 million in ambulance infrastructure, delivering 51 new ambulance stations across the state. These facilities provide paramedics with better working conditions and ensure emergency care is available to all Victorians.

We have also reached an in-principle agreement with paramedics to maintain their status as amongst the highest paid in Australia, while introducing new measures like an end-of-shift management procedure to help paramedics get home sooner and safer. This is an election commitment we are proud to be delivering. At the last election we stood alongside paramedics to announce the vision.

We also pledged to hire 40 additional mobile intensive care paramedics and create Australia’s first centre of excellence in paramedicine in partnership with Victoria University. This $20 million facility will train up to 1500 paramedic students annually, using cutting-edge simulation equipment to deliver the highest quality education for both undergraduate students and paramedic practitioners.

We acknowledge that the challenges facing our health care system are large, but we approach these challenges in partnership and collaboration. Unlike those opposite, who left paramedics demoralised and under-resourced, this government has consistently listened to and invested in and elevated our healthcare workforce. I want to thank the hardworking paramedics across Victoria. Every day they are out working in our communities, saving lives, supporting Victorians in some of their most vulnerable and frightening moments and at times confronting devastating scenes. It is challenging work, it is critical work, and we are so grateful to them for their support on the front lines.

Along with paramedics, I want to thank our whole health workforce, many of whom call Northcote home, as we have a very large representation of healthcare workers living in our community. These workers have been going above and beyond, particularly since the pandemic – our nurses, clerks, cleaners, kitchen staff, doctors and everyone who keeps our health systems up and running. They are the best of us, and we thank them.

I also commend the Minister for Health, who has not wasted a single moment in moving to implement significant reform in our health system. It is an honour to work as her Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health on the critical work to ensure Victorian women and girls are treated with dignity and respect and have their health issues recognised, understood, diagnosed and treated.

This bill is yet another example of the Labor government delivering real action, and it shows what can be achieved when we respect, value and invest in our healthcare professionals. I look forward to seeing us empower paramedic practitioners to improve healthcare delivery and build a system that is more accessible and responsive for Victorians. I commend the bill to the house.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (15:01): Acting Speaker De Martino, it is a pleasure to see you in the chair this afternoon. The Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Paramedic Practitioners) Bill 2024 is a bill that this side of the house does not oppose, because we recognise how helpful this will be, particularly in the regions. I spend a lot of time with our hero paramedics. I have a lot of them in the family. A shout-out in particular to the team leader in Robinvale, who is on maternity leave at the moment, having just given birth to a baby girl, which is fantastic, and she is also a cousin of mine, which is fantastic.

This bill, which proposes to amend the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 to establish paramedic practitioners as a class of registered paramedics and to authorise paramedic practitioners to obtain, possess, use, sell and supply certain substances, is a step in the right direction in hopefully keeping people out of our EDs. Mildura Base Public Hospital has an emergency department that is about 30 beds too small – and has been for about 15 years now – and it really needs some pressure taken off it.

[NAME AWAITING VERIFICATION]

This is another avenue not only to allow paramedics to work to their full scope of practice but also to enable paramedics to have continuity of care of some patients, much like with the community paramedic program. I know I talk about this a lot. The community paramedic program that is provided by Sunraysia Community Health Services in the Sunraysia region has changed the landscape. It has changed the lives of our community paramedics, including Travis, who was here doing health checks a month or so ago and talking about the community paramedic program. One of the things that Trav said was that it allows that rapport and relationship building that otherwise paramedics do not often get. Sometimes it can be quite a traumatic experience or it is that one-on-one at the hospital – maybe there is some wait time there – but you do not get a lot of contact with patients beyond that. The community paramedic program in particular has demonstrated how paramedics do want to evolve. They do want to keep upskilling.

Clause 4 of this bill defines a paramedic practitioner as a registered paramedic who has completed a prescribed postgraduate qualification and satisfies the prescribed experience requirements of the completion of a master of paramedic practitioner by Monash University. We have a Monash University school of rural health in Mildura, you will be happy to know, and they do a fabulous job. We have a La Trobe University campus, which has just opened the new Dr Deb Neal wing for nursing, which is state of the art. La Trobe University have invested a huge amount of money into this facility, which is fantastic. It is capable of delivering that biomedical science degree, which then would allow end-to-end learning for GPs through the Monash school of rural health, so you have that end-to-end learning that students could do in Mildura under the guidance of Dr Travis Taggert. That is the end goal. That would be brilliant – to have more GPs – and obviously having Monash University in Mildura is also really important for the paramedics that want to upskill to paramedic practitioners, which is again allowing them to have another avenue.

There are some frustrations from some of my paramedic friends and family. I had a paramedic grad in the office last week who is a friend of some of my team and who is so passionate about health care and has already done a bit of work at the Hattah hospital that Dr Trav sets up during that amazing event to be the healthcare provider when people inevitably have a spill and break bones or injure themselves coming off dirt bikes. That kind of medicine is what I think paramedics love, and they would take any avenue to be able to work in that space. But, on being able to upskill and have other avenues, the graduate that I was talking to last week was saying that it is so hard for her and her classmates to get a job. They cannot get a job. She is devastated. Her entire class are having real trouble just because of the lack of supervision. She does not want to move away from Mildura. She wants to practise in the regions, but the fact is that she cannot get a job. I think there are 1200 graduate paramedics that are looking for jobs at the moment, approximately, but cannot get jobs because there are not enough of those in supervision roles. That is really alarming for those that are going into paramedicine that they cannot get a job when our healthcare system is crumbling. To upskill to this paramedic practitioner role of course you have got to be able to get there first.

I was talking about Sunraysia Community Health and the community paramedics program earlier, and I also heard the member for Lowan refer to this fabulous program – and it really is. There has been lots of talk about the investment that is needed, and I did speak to the Minister for Health about this earlier, that the community paramedics are federally funded – but not through Sunraysia Community Health; when it is delivered through community health it is a state funding model. Community health providers just do not get the credit or the funding they deserve, they just do not. They are the underdog in the healthcare system, particularly Darren Midgley and Janet Hicks and their team at Sunraysia Community Health. They bat so far above their weight with the funding that they are allocated, and they are delivering the community paramedics program. Travis said in the south library at the function that they only need $6 million. You could fund it statewide. Imagine: it would give current paramedics another avenue to practise. It would alleviate pressure on those already overfilled emergency departments and hospitals that are clearly under pressure. We saw the annual report for Mildura Base Public Hospital come out today. It is looking awful, absolutely awful.

Robinvale District Health Services is an MPS, which leads me to my next point. An MPS is a multipurpose healthcare service block-funded to deliver what the community needs. Imagine if community health services like Sunraysia Community Health were block-funded to be able to allocate the funding that their community needs, because funding for Sunraysia Community Health is going to be different to what is needed in Horsham. They have very different populations, very different communities. They are going to be different to what Colac needs. Imagine if it went all the way right through the regions in particular. Maryborough is obviously very, very different again to Mildura and Horsham. Imagine what could be done if those community health services were actually funded in such a way that they could utilise it, alleviate some of the audits and the reporting that needs to be done and just allow them to get on with the job. Then we could have community paramedics right around regional Victoria taking the pressure off the hospital system. Wouldn’t that be nice? I mean, maybe that is a utopian or commonsense wish – and it appears that ‘commonsense’ and ‘utopia’ are used in the same sentence as far as the government is concerned.

The paramedic practitioner bill is one that we support.

I know the Shadow Minister for Health and Shadow Minister for Ambulance Services in the other place has done an extensive amount of stakeholder engagement. I have done my own piece of stakeholder engagement with those on the front line that are in the ambulances, that are community paramedics, that are team leaders, that are community engagement people, even the ACOs – the ambulance community officers. They are all in favour of this because they recognise that there is a huge need for –

Emma Kealy interjected.

Jade BENHAM: Yes, we just need more money put into the health service, and it should be a priority – what a novel idea. This should be a good thing. We will wait and see. The devil is always in the detail with these things. We will see what happens when it comes to regulating the service, but for now it is something that, as I said earlier, is a step in the right direction.

Natalie SULEYMAN (St Albans – Minister for Veterans, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Youth) (15:11): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (15:11): The government is about to misuse this Parliament again. What an outrageous abuse from those Labor members to use the Parliament’s time again to sledge. That is what this government wants to do again, to spend another 2 hours of time in this place to sledge and sledge and sledge. The members on that side of the chamber should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. We are currently debating a paramedics bill, and the government wants to move to a sledge motion instead of debating that bill. I look forward to hearing all of the members on that side of the chamber stand up and explain why a sledge motion is more important than debating the bill that the house currently is.

What an absolute disgrace this government is. After yesterday the government – I mean, did they not embarrass themselves multiple times? Multiple times I went to the government and said, ‘Please stop. Please stop using this place in this way. Please stop it.’ I went to the Premier and said, ‘Please stop it. Please stop demeaning this place.’ During part of the debate yesterday there were school students in the gallery, so we will now have members on that side of the place stand up and explain why we should move to a sledge motion over debating a paramedics bill. Shame on this government, shame on this government, shame on this government. To think that the government wants to park the bill so that it can play its little games – the government should be ashamed.

What is now clear, what we now know, is that these decisions could only be made if they were approved by the Premier herself. This much parliamentary time would not be misused had the Premier not personally approved it, so we know that the government from the Premier down is saying they want to have an outrageous, vicious, dirty use of this Parliament’s time, so much so that the Speaker yesterday made a number of comments about the debate that was then underway. The Speaker herself made a number of comments about the debate that was underway. I think I felt and hoped that the mistakes the government made yesterday would be left there, but no. The government again, from the Premier down, clearly want to get into the mud. We know going into another day of this snarky, nasty dirtiness that only the Premier could approve this. We oppose entirely moving away from this paramedics bill to move to a sledge motion. Can you imagine it?

What are the members on the other side of the place going to justify that decision on? On what grounds could they possibly justify the need to debate that motion over the legislation that was being debated by both sides of the chamber? In fact there were members on both sides of the chamber who had not yet spoken; the speakers list was not even exhausted. The government is now saying, ‘Let’s move away from a bill that essentially is around paramedics to just waste the Parliament’s time with dirty, nasty sledges.’ Well, the Premier needs to come in and explain it. Why doesn’t the Premier actually stand up and explain why this procedural motion should occur? The coalition will be opposing this. We will absolutely be opposing this gutter behaviour from the Labor Party. That is what they do when they are losing – always straight into the gutter. That is what is going to happen, so we will be opposing this motion, and we will do everything we can to call out their behaviour.

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (15:16): I am just checking my microphone is working, because I am not sure if the member for Brighton’s was. I might just remind the member for Brighton that as the record holder for procedural motions interrupting the government’s legislative program –

James Newbury: You moved the motion!

The SPEAKER: Member for Brighton, you had your turn.

Tim RICHARDSON: Sixteen seconds in, I am building up to my crescendo on the point I am trying to make.

James Newbury: I am waiting.

The SPEAKER: Member for Brighton!

Tim RICHARDSON: That is all right. You will wait a bit longer if you keep interjecting. The record holder for breaking important legislation for the last two years – on procedural motions, on health bills, on a range of justice bills, on critical infrastructure bills and legislation – says that suddenly moving to other parts of business is such an egregious thing. That literally has happened up to 40 or 50 times on procedural motions that have been moved by the member for Brighton. The member for Brighton puts forward the contention that we are suddenly moving away from a bill – that is literally what the member for Brighton has done in the absence of coalition speakers over and over and over on bills. When they have literally had no contributors on bills, it has been a way to pad out the time a bit.

The reason it is important to move back to this important discussion – and it has been a lively and emotive discussion – is that we are in a huge crisis in Victoria, where some of the nastiest and worst elements of I would not even say politics, I would say fascism, have found their way into the political discourse. It is an important discussion to have. I read out a motion this morning about the words of the Leader of the Opposition himself talking about this being an acid and a poison that runs through the Liberal Party. This is a discussion that needs to be had. We need to talk about this openly as a Parliament – about how we can have a multipartisan approach to how we rid the political discourse of some of the nastiest elements.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: The member for Polwarth interjects, ‘How is it a multipartisan thing?’ Well, from what the member for Berwick has talked about and said, he called police and moved away from that protest. Also Mrs Deeming in the other place did the same thing. So the important discussion around how this is handled –

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Brighton has a point of order, and I would ask members to stop interjecting.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, this is a procedural motion.

Tim RICHARDSON: On the point of order, Speaker, the reason to go back to this motion is integral to why we are going back to this motion. It might be uncomfortable for the member for Brighton –

The SPEAKER: I do not uphold the point of order.

Tim RICHARDSON: It is an important, critical part. People can term it as what the motion would be. That is a part of debate, and people around the Parliament have put forward their contentions on whether that motion stands or not – some with more force and more vigour and more angst than others. But I think it is an important discussion to put on the record around a significant crisis that we face in the discourse in Victoria, the likes of which we have not seen before. Some of the worst elements of fascism and hate in our community are trying to infiltrate our political discourse.

It is upon others to debate individual members of Parliament – if I have an opportunity to speak, that will be a chance as well – and for those across the Parliament to put forward their reflections. Whether that is fair or unfair is for them to debate.

The fundamental point is this is an important discussion to have, going back to why this motion is important. I just think it is a bit rich that there is so much passion and noise from the member for Brighton in putting the contention forward about suddenly adjourning a piece of legislation when there have been 40 or 50 instances of critically important bills in this place when the member for Brighton has not once moved a procedural motion on bills but sometimes it will be two or three times on the same legislation, denying his colleagues the opportunity to contribute. The notion that this is an exceptional thing – no, this happens every single sitting week. I have spoken on more procedural debates moved by the member for Brighton than some of their backbench have spoken on bills in the whole of their term.

Maybe those opposite could coach their fellow Liberals to just take a leaf out of the book of some of the Nats – just put their name down, just have a dip, have a crack, put their name on the list, speak on some bills and make a contribution every now and then. We count. Even though we have brought this into the public forum, the lack of contributions from the part-timers that rock up in the coalition agreement, it still has not changed any behaviour. There are still some that speak on nothing. You wonder what they do for the three days. Maybe they will come into this motion discussion and put their view forward on this existential crisis in the political discourse that we are facing.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:21): I rise to absolutely and totally forcefully put the point that this is a complete abuse of this Parliament’s time, taking the opportunity from me, the member for Polwarth, representing 10 regional hospitals. The member for Eildon alongside me wanted to speak on the healthcare needs of regional Victoria. We have had the member for Mildura talking on it. We have other country members, the member for Euroa and others, wishing to spend time letting this government and this Parliament understand the full consequences of underfunded and poorly maintained and looked after health services here in the state of Victoria. This is one the few bills that this government has implemented that might actually go some way in helping alleviate the medical crisis that is on in regional Victoria at the moment.

For the member for Mordialloc to start pontificating that we interrupt government business because there are never enough opposition speakers – well, member for Mordialloc, this week in this session there are a heap of opposition speakers who you are denying the opportunity to put their case forward, because what does this government –

The SPEAKER: Member for Polwarth, through the Chair.

Tim Richardson interjected.

The SPEAKER: Member for Mordialloc, you had your turn. Through the Chair.

Richard RIORDAN: Sorry, Speaker, through the Chair. It is important that the opportunity is given to fully flush out the state of the health crisis here in Victoria. This Parliament will not come back and sit and have an opportunity to discuss the needs of regional Victorians for a bit over two months. That is a long time when we hear day in, day out the absolute crisis of the budget that this state is in, the cost-cutting that is going on, the uncertainty that exists in every regional health service in Victoria. In fact across my own region the 10 health services do not know whether next year they going to be part of new local area health service networks that are going to be run from Geelong. Are the people of Cobden, are the people of Timboon, are the people of Colac, are the people of Apollo Bay and other communities in my electorate going to wake up sometime in the next few months only to find out that their services have been cut and they are going to have to travel longer, travel further and endure more hardship to maintain basic health services because of the incompetence of this government? That is what this Parliament should be talking about.

If we went out onto the steps of Parliament and spoke to the average Victorian out there, do you think they would really want this Parliament, on the last sitting day before a two-month recess, to be having some childish university student sort of pathetic sledge motion, a childish sledge motion? The member for Mordialloc actually agrees that it was not true; he actually said that he knew that the member for Berwick did the right thing. So what are we debating? It is absolutely concocted outrage. The confected discontent and importance that this government has put on it is just a shallow, lame attempt to divert the discussion and the time of this Parliament away from much more important issues. There is not a Victorian that would not think that good-quality First World health care is an absolute right of all Victorians and something that this Parliament absolutely should be spending time on.

To cut it short with at least three or four regional members still not given the opportunity to debate it but instead allow this government more time to go on a fanciful diversion, a sidetrack issue that is used for cheap, purely political purposes that do not improve or enhance the lives or the services of Victorians, is an absolute outrage. We must all as a Parliament stand against and object to the adjournment of this debate this afternoon.

It is absolutely critical that we get the opportunity to discuss and continue to debate the pros and cons of this bill that has only been waved in front of this Parliament for a handful of speakers. To think that this government wasted most of yesterday afternoon and again seeks to disrupt the business of the house today on a folly that is just designed to allow the government speakers for the rest of the afternoon not to focus on what is important to Victorians but to focus on something entirely irrelevant. They have not even been able to drum up much media interest in this topic, because even the media understands that the government is just trying to waste time and filibuster its way through to the end of the season. It is not good enough.

This Parliament, this house should absolutely reject the adjournment motion being put forward by the government. We should absolutely return to the business that we agreed on at the start of the week.

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (15:26): I should not say it gives me pleasure, but I rise this afternoon to speak about the fact that we absolutely have to go back to this motion. The member for Polwarth just made the point: who in Victoria outside of this place would think that it is a good idea for us to use this place like this? I can tell you who: the Victorian Sikh community. I can tell you who: the Sikh community in my electorate. I have two gurdwaras in my electorate. My Sikh community, those two gurdwaras, the people that run them and the people that attend them are some of the most amazing residents that we have in my electorate of Tarneit. They are some of the kindest and most generous people that you will ever meet. I will reiterate that there are people outside of this place that absolutely want us to be speaking about this, because what happened on the weekend was an absolute travesty.

The member for Berwick and those opposite sit there and say that they are not racist, and fair enough – I am not going to call you racist.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair, member for Tarneit.

Dylan WIGHT: But do not sit here in this place and say that this was about a lack of consultation, because that is absolute rubbish. It was an election commitment.

Brad Rowswell: On a point of order, Speaker, I believe that the member for Tarneit is reflecting upon the Chair.

The SPEAKER: The member for Tarneit did reflect on the Chair. However, member for Tarneit, this is a procedural motion. Speak to the procedural motion.

Dylan WIGHT: Indeed, Speaker. I am indeed outlining why it is incredibly important to go back to this motion. I am outlining why it is incredibly important to do that, because it is incredibly important for Victorians to listen to this debate and to know exactly what happened on the weekend and to know why it is such a danger for those opposite to ever be in control of this state. This was not about a lack of consultation. This was an election commitment. I am not sure that you can have more consultation than that.

Cindy McLeish: On a point of order, Speaker, given your last ruling, the speaker on his feet is wavering from the procedural motion and starting to talk on the motion itself. I ask you to bring him back.

Natalie Suleyman: On the point of order, Speaker, the member for Tarneit has been totally relevant to the procedural motion that is before the house.

James Newbury: Further to the point of order, Speaker, on relevance, the member was speaking to the motion’s substance that the government seeks to bring on, the sledge motion, rather than the procedural motion before the house.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Nepean, you have a habit of interjecting when you are not in your place.

James Newbury: He does it there too.

The SPEAKER: I know. But go back to your place. Member for Tarneit, please come back to the procedural motion.

Dylan WIGHT: We heard the member for Brighton in his contribution on this procedural motion speak, as the member for Polwarth did, about this motion that we will get to after the procedural debate as a waste of this place’s time.

James Newbury: Correct.

Dylan WIGHT: I have outlined why that is absolutely incorrect. Also, I think it is worth noting the rank hypocrisy of the member for Brighton, who says that we on this side of the chamber are wasting people’s time. As the member for Mordialloc said, I do not even speak on every procedural motion but I reckon I have spoken on more procedural motions from the member for Brighton than half of their backbench. It is rank hypocrisy. The member for Brighton comes into this joint, moves procedural motions and then uses privilege to name people so somebody that did an internship in his office can write a frivolous article about someone. It is rank hypocrisy. The member for Brighton uses this joint as an absolute plaything.

Cindy McLeish: On a point of order, Speaker, the speaker on his feet has moved away from the procedural motion again.

The SPEAKER: I do not uphold the point of order.

Dylan WIGHT: Thank you. As I will repeat, on the procedural motion, it is rank hypocrisy for the member for Brighton to come in here and say that we are wasting this house’s time. I will repeat: the member for Brighton uses the privilege of this place to name people so somebody that did an internship in his office can write frivolous articles. If that is not a waste of this chamber’s time, I do not know what is.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (15:31): I am rising to oppose the adjournment of the debate on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Paramedic Practitioners) Bill 2024 to move on to the sledge motion. First of all, I will note that on the government business program and on today’s daily program other motions are listed, but this one is not, so the government have moved from what they put forward.

I want to also comment on what the member for Mordialloc mentioned earlier, that there is an existential crisis. I would suggest there is a health crisis. I would suggest there is an ambulance crisis at the moment, and I am one who would very much like the opportunity to talk on the bill that we were just debating. That bill does a couple of things. It introduces a new initiative, a new concept that I think people are pretty excited about. In fact I cannot imagine the disappointment of the member for Melton, because he talked about having discussions about this sort of concept with Minister Hennessey. She was around 10 years ago, so he has been waiting all of this time to try to get this concept off the ground, and now the members of his team have decided it is not important enough for us to continue debating for the rest of the afternoon, which is not particularly long.

What I could also infer from this is that we must be coming back tomorrow to finish the debate on the paramedic practitioners bill given that it is an important bill. I know we have got a list of speakers, I know the government has list of speakers, and I think it is only fair that we give that bill its due consideration. Not only, as I have mentioned, is it a new initiative but we also have that crisis that is before us in the ambulance system and in the health system. We know that there are so many issues happening that need to be aired, and I can think of so many that I would like to have talked about.

We know even now that very recently Ambulance Victoria failed to publish their rosters in the required 28-day period of notice, which has implications for coverage over Christmas. We have had the CEO resign after a short time, we have had the CFO go, the board is in all sorts of disarray – it has had changes after changes – and we know also that a fish rots from the head. The reason we have this crisis is we have a government that is not managing the health crisis, not managing the ambulance service, and we have to then put that out there for discussion and look at the role of the paramedics and how the government has consistently let them down. We are introducing 30 people who are going to have the opportunity to become these paramedic practitioners, which is a new initiative, and I think it does need to be fully evaluated and discussed through both sides of politics in this chamber. But instead we have decided to cut this short and move on to a motion that is nothing more than a sledge motion.

I want to come to that motion, because yesterday we saw how heated it got late in the afternoon. The member for Bulleen in his contribution I think brought down the tone of that. He mentioned how it reflected on all of us – how a frivolous and politically motivated motion reflected on all of us.

It reflected on the government itself, it reflected on the opposition and it reflected on the Speaker having this sort of motion go through the house which is there simply to be divisive and to be a sledge motion.

We know also that the government are pretty keen to try and shore up some of their seats because things have not been going their way, but I think we are not giving due consideration to the paramedics who the government say that they support no end, without question. Today we see they that have let them down. They have not let people put on the record their thanks for the work that they do, for the hard work that they do, for the fact that they have been overworked and understaffed and that they have got a pretty dismal leadership from above that is not addressing the problems. These are issues of the health crisis and the ambulance crisis that we need to be debating and we need to be talking about.

We do not need to move on to a sledge motion which demeans all of us, and I think when you hear some the comments that people have been making from the government side, it is pretty disrespectful and it is pretty low that they would think you need to do that. The Parliament chamber and the privilege of being in Parliament are to be used for better things than that.

Assembly divided on motion to adjourn debate:

Ayes (49): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (27): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Chris Crewther, Gabrielle de Vietri, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Tim McCurdy, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Tim Read, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, Ellen Sandell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner, Jess Wilson

Motion agreed to.

Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Health Infrastructure, Minister for Ambulance Services) (15:42): I move:

That the debate be adjourned until later this day.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (15:42): This is an outrageous abuse of the Parliament’s time. While the Premier is sitting in this chamber, I can say the Premier is taking this Parliament into the gutter and knowingly misusing this Parliament’s time to take it into a sledge motion.

The SPEAKER: Order!

James NEWBURY: This is my voice, Speaker.

Colin Brooks: On a point of order, Speaker, the member knows that reflecting on another member is disorderly.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Brighton, be mindful of not reflecting on members.

James NEWBURY: The Labor government is seeking to again waste this Parliament’s time by sledging. How ashamed they should be. We will fight it at every single step. We will cause a division at every single step, because the Premier needs to own this. The Premier needs to be called out for allowing this most outrageous abuse of our Parliament’s time. Victorians should be watching on, with an hour or so left, in theory, of the last day of the week for Parliament before Christmas, to see the type of gutter behaviour of this Labor government.

To think that this government is going to finish the year moving on to a sledge motion again after using the Parliament’s time so shamefully yesterday. I put on record again how many times I went to the government yesterday to say, ‘Please stop using the Parliament’s time in this way.’ Today I again said to the government, ‘Leave yesterday’s mistakes in yesterday. Do not move the mistakes of yesterday into today.’

We now see a procedural motion that takes away debate on a bill on paramedics to sledge a member of the opposition.

It is absolutely shameful. The government would only agree to using two days of its time in this way if the Premier personally approved of it. And that says everything about the Premier’s character, doesn’t it? We know that is what it does. This is an outrageous abuse.

Iwan Walters: On a point of order, Speaker, this procedural motion is not an excuse for the member for Brighton to reflect upon those opposite and to impugn the character of the Premier or any other member.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Brighton, be mindful of not reflecting on members in the chamber.

James NEWBURY: I was reflecting on the collective, the collective Labor government, who have now for two days wasted time. The Leader of the House talks about sledging. I tell you what, the Leader of the House is the king sledger of this place.

The SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair.

James NEWBURY: The absolute sledger of this place, to allow the Parliament to be used in this way. What I can also let the Parliament know is that during the division the Greens and the National Party advised me that they do not want to speak on the sledge motion. I advise the Speaker that the National Party and Greens advised me during the division that they do not wish to speak on the sledge motion.

Pauline Richards: On a point of order, Speaker, this is a tight procedural debate, and I would ask you to bring the member back to the procedural debate.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Brighton, do not interrupt people when they are on their feet. Come back to the procedural motion.

James NEWBURY: Thank you, and I was speaking to the procedure. During the division the National Party and the Greens advised me that they do not wish to speak on the sledge motion. We will oppose it at every single step of the way. This is disgusting, and it shows quite clearly for everyone the Premier’s character.

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (15:47): I stand in support of this motion. It is an incredibly important motion. We have seen communities, our local communities, come to us in distress about this, and they are very keen to have this debated. It looks to me like it is a protection racket for those that were involved, and I just have to ask myself: why are they so afraid to debate this? This is an important motion that we need to speak about.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:48): I am absolutely aghast that again this government is seeking to ignore the business of this house, a business program that they themselves put to this Parliament at the start of the week, a business program that they said was important, a business program that we divided on and agreed that we would speak to this important bill about giving more powers and support to our paramedics. It is a bill that many speakers from the opposition have not yet had an opportunity to contribute to. The reason so many people in the opposition still want to speak to the bill on giving paramedics more powers and more ability to look after remote and regional communities – we want to talk to that because this is a matter of great interest and of great concern to the people of Victoria. The people of Victoria would be more than aghast, they would be absolutely disappointed – and it would be another reason to be disappointed with the Allan government – to think that with the Parliament rising tonight for more than two months before this Parliament –

The SPEAKER: Member for Narre Warren North, are you eating in the chamber? The member for Narre Warren North will leave the chamber to finish her food.

Richard RIORDAN: I guess it highlights the contempt some people on the other side have for the Parliament at times, but –

The SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair.

Richard RIORDAN: Sorry, Speaker. At a time with two months break we hear regularly, day after day, another disaster befalls this government. We learned today that Triple Zero, the most critical life-giving, supporting, disaster-managing agents that we have in this state –

Anthony Cianflone: On a point of order, Speaker, this is a very tight procedural debate, and I ask you to draw the member back to the substance of the procedural debate, not talk about Triple Zero Victoria and other matters that have nothing to do with this. This is about social cohesion, which the Liberal Party have no interest in maintaining. Talk about subject –

The SPEAKER: Member for Pascoe Vale, that is not the way to raise a point of order. I will not call you again on a point of order if you do that. Member for Polwarth, there is no point of order, but do come back to the procedural motion.

Richard RIORDAN: We have a two-month break. Victorians need to know that this Parliament is doing its job well and raising the issues of the day. We only learned today, for example, that Triple Zero has been in deficit – it has run out of money. We learned this week that they have resorted to pen and pencil.

Pauline Richards: On a point of order, Speaker, again, a different member but the same point of order: this is a narrow procedural debate. I ask you to bring the member back to the procedural debate.

The SPEAKER: Member for Polwarth, come back to the procedural debate.

Richard RIORDAN: This procedural debate is about the desire of this government to ignore its own business program that it put to the vote earlier in the week that said we would have time to debate this important bill that it put forward about giving paramedics more powers and more capacity to serve and look after the people of Victoria. This government is choosing to adjourn that off without giving many opposition members the opportunity to contribute to the debate. And what are they doing it for? For cheap political purposes.

Even the media has not picked up on the desire. No matter how hard this government have gone – they have put out press releases; they have tried and they have tried. They have gone around into various communities throughout the east and the west of Victoria to deliberately stir –

Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Speaker, once again the member for Polwarth is defying the ruling that he stay speaking on the narrow procedural motion.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Polwarth will come back to the procedural debate.

Richard RIORDAN: The point is we do not want to adjourn this off to later this day. We do not want the opposition to be denied the opportunity to contribute to this important bill. And most importantly, the opposition, like most people in Victoria, do not want the important business of this house corrupted by this government seeking cheap political points, cheap attacks on members of Parliament who they know well are good local members, who represent their community, who bring people together to do something that is government failed to do, and that is to undertake genuine consultation.

Nick STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (15:53): I will just make some brief remarks, because I really do want to get back to this motion. There is no doubt that this is a very, very uncomfortable conversation on the part of those opposite, but it is a conversation that we do have to get back to because it is a very important discussion. Those opposite want to be the next government of Victoria, but from what I have seen today and yesterday they cannot handle the sort of scrutiny that it takes to be the government of Victoria. Instead of running a protection racket for some of their members who have done the wrong thing and have organised –

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, relevance.

The SPEAKER: I do ask the member for Bentleigh to come back to the procedural motion.

Nick STAIKOS: Highlighting why it is important that we do come back to this motion, there should be no protection rackets. This is a discussion that has to be had. What happened last weekend was unacceptable and should not be acceptable to a major political party of this state.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (15:54): I support the member for Brighton. This is a terrible use of this Parliament’s time, and to follow the member for Bentleigh, who this morning was ordered by the Speaker to come into this chamber and issue an apology based on how he took the debate yesterday on the motion that the government is trying to –

Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Speaker, the member on his feet is not being relevant to the motion that is being debated. I ask that you ask him to come back and not use the opportunity while on his feet to impugn members of this place.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Nepean will come back to the procedural motion.

Sam GROTH: On the point of order, Speaker, I was directly following the member for Bentleigh. He had spoken to the procedural motion and why it was important to come back, and I was directly rebutting what –

The SPEAKER: I would hope that you would speak to the procedural motion, member for Nepean.

Sam GROTH: I will happily speak to the procedural motion. Just this morning, when the member for Berwick and the member for Eildon tried to introduce private members bills on issues that are of public importance in this place, they were told they were wasting the Parliament’s time and that there was important legislative reform that had to go through this place, legislation that we planned to debate and that many members on this side of the chamber have not had the opportunity to speak on. There is a long list of members we have on this side to speak on the importance of what the ambulance service does in our state and the failures within the health system. Many members want to speak on that. We were told this morning how important it was to continue debating the legislation in this place, the government business program and the issues brought forward by the government.

Emma Vulin: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance. I would like to bring the member back to the tight procedural debate.

Sam GROTH: On the point of order, Speaker, I was being directly relevant to the procedural motion at hand and why we should not be moving to the motion.

The SPEAKER: Member for Nepean to continue his contribution. There is no point of order.

Sam GROTH: Thank you, Speaker. We heard this morning that it was important to continue debating the legislation that the government put forward, and now the government feels the need, just as they did yesterday, to bring on a sledge motion for nothing other than political purposes, to not debate the issues important to the people of Victoria.

Members interjecting.

Sam GROTH: It was only a few months ago that ambulances in this state were being driven around with messages, just like the police in this state are driving around with messages on their windows. The government continues to fail –

Anthony Cianflone: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance. What the member is talking about has nothing to do with the procedural motion.

The SPEAKER: I ask the member to come back to the procedural motion.

Sam GROTH: Good to hear from the member for Pascoe Vale, whose outburst just before should have spent a little bit of time –

The SPEAKER: Order! On the procedural motion.

Sam GROTH: He should have spent a little bit of time with the member for Mordialloc and men’s behavioural change with the outburst we saw in the chamber just before from the member for Pascoe Vale.

Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Speaker, the member for Nepean is clearly out of order. He continues to reflect on members in this chamber in a wholly inappropriate way. This is a narrow procedural debate. I ask that you ask him to obey your rulings.

The SPEAKER: Member for Nepean, back to the procedural motion.

Sam GROTH: Thank you, Speaker. I will come back to the procedural motion. This is an absolute abuse of the time of this Parliament. As the member for Brighton said, everything is being run through the Premier and has to approved by the Premier. Where is the Premier to come in and speak on the motion, speak on the need for it to be pushed through and speak on the need to not address the ambulance crisis, the health crisis that she is overseeing? We should be debating the legislation. We have 1 hour of normal time left in Parliament for the year. There is a need to debate the legislation and the needs of the Victorian people. We should not be moving to sledge motions. I might add that yesterday the debate and the motions that were moved were completely untrue. As the member for Eildon, the member for Bulleen – and I think everybody in this chamber took note – brought the tone down so well.

The SPEAKER: Point of order – the member for Nepean will resume his seat.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Polwarth!

Daniela De Martino: On a point of order, Speaker, this is a very narrow procedural debate, and the member is straying beyond the procedure of the debate.

Sam GROTH: On the point of order, Speaker, it is entirely relevant to speak to why we should or should not be moving the motion at hand. If you cannot address the motion – (Time expired)

Assembly divided on Mary-Anne Thomas’s motion:

Ayes (49): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (26): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Chris Crewther, Gabrielle de Vietri, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Tim Read, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, I seek to refer to your previous ruling about attire in the chamber. The member for Richmond has a keffiyeh in the chamber. The Speaker has referred to that previously and advised the house that should not be worn or adorned in the chamber. I would ask that she counsel the member.

The SPEAKER: The member for Richmond is aware of the ruling. I would ask her not to have the item around her body.