Tuesday, 20 September 2022

Adjournment

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (17:41): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:41): (2124) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health. Although the Minister for Health does not have direct oversight of the issue that I speak about—it is in relation to the parliamentary committee that I am sitting on, the pandemic committee—there is an important element to the question I am going to ask, because it relates to the chief health officer. I and my colleagues Emma Kealy and Kim Wells in the other place have been very thorough in wanting to understand exactly the advice that the government has been provided with.

We have got the scenario where the IPMAC, the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee, report—the Minister for Health has said—will not be released until after the election, because we have only got two sitting days this week and of course we have got a motion about that tomorrow. I am concerned that the actual oversight and what the chief health officer is saying publicly are not being regarded or not being taken into consideration by the minister. We know that the advice given in the last orders, when the declaration was extended to 12 October, was ignored by the minister. She said that herself. In the last few days the chief health officer, Dr Sutton, has said that we are in a wave and we are in a trough at the moment and that the virus will take off. Quoting his tweet, he said:

It’s clear were in the ‘trough’ part of COVID-19 activity now, with fewer cases and hospitalisations than we’ve seen for months. That’s very welcome, of course. It may also be that the coming wave is lower and slower than the waves we’ve seen in 2022, for different reasons.

He went on to say, though:

The coming ‘wave’—if that’s the term—may be driven more by the waning hybrid immunity (recent infection + vaccination) than by any particular variant. Make no mistake, the variants will come.

I was keen to have the pandemic committee sit again so that we could hear from the chief health officer. Well, clearly that is not going to happen, because I cannot get any response out of the chair, Suzanna Sheed. She has refused to even answer the two letters I have sent to her about this. We could meet tomorrow while the Parliament is sitting, but, no, I have had nothing from her. And as I have previously said, the government MPs just refuse to turn up to this committee. The action I seek is for the minister to release all advice that she has received from the chief health officer or any other officials within the department about these comments made by the chief health officer about the next wave that he thinks will come and the preparation that is in place, should we in Victoria find ourselves in a situation like we found ourselves in last summer.