Emergency communication services
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:02): (352) My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, ESTA have been plagued with problems for years, despite multiple warnings to the government – ESTA, now Triple Zero Victoria – and, sadly, as a result of your government failing to act, dozens of Victorians have died. Recently an outage in the radio system resulted in paramedics being unable to communicate properly and resorting to using their own mobile phones. On Monday paramedics were again forced to rely on their personal mobile phones due to another blackout. Minister, when will this be fixed?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:02): I thank Ms Crozier for her question. Specifically the incident on Monday was a radio interruption that was resolved in around 90 minutes. It affected two of the regional channels used to communicate between ambulance and dispatchers and paramedic crews. As you have indicated, mobile phones were used to communicate to in-field crews, and ESTA advised that there was no adverse impact to dispatch delivery of services to the Victorian community during this time. Work has already started on preparing for Ambulance Victoria to transition to the digital radio across regional Victoria, and that is expected to start next year. I do thank those members who reverted to using their mobile phones to ensure that communications could continue during that disruption.
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:03): I am pleased that there were no impacts, but, Minister, with these ongoing communication failures, how can Victorians have faith that the systemic problems that caused at least 33 deaths that we know of through delays in 000 calls will be solved? You are saying it is going to be transitioning next year, but how can Victorians have faith that your government is going to get this right?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:04): Ms Crozier, we have spent a lot of time in this chamber talking about ESTA, and indeed the Triple Zero Victoria Bill last week was a good opportunity to talk about the continued investment and support that this government has for this organisation. We have a new CAD system that is close to finalising those tenders. We have had a lot of interest, and that is really promising, because you want to get the best value and the best product for Victorians so that they can rely on it.
In relation to the other issues that you have raised, I want to thank this amazing workforce because as we are making these investments, as they have encountered whether it is issues within their organisations or issues out of their control like an Optus outage, they have stepped up when they needed to to ensure that any workarounds, any contingencies, could be activated as a matter of urgency, because these people are motivated and absolutely dedicated to the safety of Victorians each and every day. It is an honour to be a government that is supporting them both financially and in other measures to ensure that they do the best work that they possibly can.