Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Production of documents

Albury Wodonga Health

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (09:58): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes:

(a) the government’s refusal to provide the Albury Wodonga Health clinical services plan and master plan;

(b) the government was informed of challenges and safety concerns of the existing Albury site and did not investigate before committing to a brownfield redevelopment;

(c) in 2023 the New South Wales government released service planning and the 2021 master plan, recommending a greenfield single-site hospital;

(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, copies of:

(a) all documents created since January 2019 relating to the Albury–Wodonga regional deal health reference group, the executive board of the regional deal, and the joint ministerial council and Albury and Wodonga councils, including:

(i) minutes and resolutions;

(ii) consultations, submissions, and reports;

(iii) correspondence or briefs;

(b) all documents from January 2020 relating to the clinical service and master planning of Albury Wodonga Health, Albury and Wodonga campuses, and the redevelopment of the Albury hospital, including:

(i) clinical service plans or reviews;

(ii) master-planning documentation;

(iii) consultations with clinicians;

(iv) capital investment analyses and proposals;

(v) geotechnical assessments;

(vi) point-of-care projections;

(vii) value management studies;

(viii) transport planning;

(ix) correspondence or briefs;

(c) all documents from January 2022 relating to the entity planning of Wodonga hospital, including:

(i) correspondence or briefs;

(ii) capital investment analyses and proposals;

(iii) value management studies;

(iv) site planning; and

(v) consultations, investigations, and reports.

This is a motion relating to documents to do with the planning for a new hospital in Albury–Wodonga. Albury Wodonga Health is a cross-border service straddling the Murray River and serving the people of Wodonga, Albury and the surrounding districts of north-east Victoria and southern Riverina in New South Wales. It has an estimated population of more than 300,000 people. It is the only cross-border health service in this nation. It is a unique example of the interwoven nature of these communities where people cross the river for work, education, family and, most importantly, health services. Two states contribute to the cost, but the health campuses on both sides of the river sit under the management of the Victorian government. It is also the biggest Victorian regional health service based on throughput and emergency presentations.

The recently renegotiated intergovernmental agreement between the two states now extends until June 2035, about another 12 years or almost three terms of the Victorian Parliament. Demand on the service is through the roof. The hospital starts the day somewhere between 30 and 70 beds short of what is needed for patients in intensive care, emergency and medical beds. Historical planning documents made it clear that neither the Albury nor the Wodonga hospitals were or are suitable for future health service delivery. The buildings and operating theatres are not fit for purpose; they are a risk to patient safety. There is asbestos all the way through the Wodonga hospital. Documents have revealed that the Albury hospital is built on a highly reactive clay soil prone to movement and that one building has already moved 60 millimetres.

The decision of the Victorian and New South Wales governments to jointly spend $450 million on the Albury hospital site to meet the current and future needs of these communities raised serious questions around how the two governments arrived at this point. When the two premiers came together in October 2022, the then Victorian Premier Dan Andrews claimed the new hospital would become a one-stop shop, an acute centre that would cut duplication and reduce the complications of spreading resources across two hospitals. This was the preferred outcome, a single-site hospital that could cater for current and future demand. For many who had been involved in the development of a 1200-page master plan in 2021, almost a year prior, the surprise was that the investment was at the existing Albury hospital. Most had expected it to be a greenfield site, as recommended by the master plan, free from the pitfalls and challenges of turning an existing hospital into a construction zone for a decade.

That mystery unravelled last year when some 2000 pages of documents were obtained by the member for Benambra from the New South Wales Parliament. These documents highlight some questionable behaviour in arriving at the decision to build on the Albury site. These documents suggest that New South Wales and senior management at Albury Wodonga Health had absolutely no intention of building the border’s much-needed new hospital on anything but the Albury campus, and all of that despite its well-documented limitations, its history of unstable ground and the greenfield build recommendation in the December 2021 master plan. What is also apparent from those documents is that no-one was telling any of the stakeholders involved in the development of the master plan that the deal was done, that a brownfield build at Albury was locked in.

Yet another documents motion in the New South Wales Legislative Council has revealed that Albury Wodonga Health no longer believes that it can consolidate its acute services on a single site with the funding that has been committed. That document was discovered last week at about the same time a new 130-page master plan, with 700 pages of appendices, selling the merits of a 10-storey tower at Albury was dumped on the community less than 24 hours before a community meeting that was trying to turn back the tide on the Albury plan. Despite all of this paperwork, there is no certainty over the project, and New South Wales Health have admitted in budget estimates that they are still costing the final design and have not settled on a final costing.

To fully understand the status of this project, the Albury–Wodonga community need to be fully informed, and that is why I am seeking these documents today. This is a simple motion that calls for the release of documents. It is a narrow motion that makes a request for a series of documents relating to a project. These are documents that the Legislative Council has the right to request, and the minister should release them. I urge members to support this motion.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:03): President, thank you very much for the call and the opportunity to follow Ms Lovell with a contribution to the short-form documents motion before us on the Albury Wodonga Health clinical services plan and master plan and also the work that we are doing with our friends a little bit north in New South Wales. The truth is that no-one quite knows health like the Allan Labor government. We have absolutely revolutionised health care around Victoria, and this includes in our regional areas.

As I said, our friends from the other side of the great Murray have joined with us in a collaboration for a $550 million redevelopment of Albury hospital, a combination that brings together governments, communities and of course patient wellbeing. This project came to a significant point in the planning process in October 2023 after the master plan for the $588 million redevelopment was unveiled for major stakeholder and community feedback. In that master plan it really does set out an ambitious vision and clear framework for the development of the Albury hospital campus, including some questions around the optimal location of the new clinical services building and the future expansion zones. Health services and all levels of stakeholders and the cross-border community there in Albury–Wodonga have made their views known, of course championed by a member for Northern Victoria, the Attorney-General in this place.

Can I also just say that the feedback time did seem quite significant to me. Opinions and feedback on this master plan opened from 16 October right through to 24 November through a series of consultations. We are ensuring that feedback from those consultations is meaningfully integrated as part of the project. In fact as recently as last week a project update with an overview of consultation activities and feedback from health staff, stakeholders and the local community was published by New South Wales. The Albury–Wodonga regional hospital project 2023 master plan report has been published in response to the community’s feedback, and we know that this master plan report provides additional details on the preliminary studies and the technical inputs that have shaped the master plan, which I think is a pretty critical and important part of the master plan process. The information on the clinical services and projects scope is indicative only at this early stage of planning, and I will just reaffirm that. Can I also mention that this program is still one of the biggest modernisations of health care in the Albury–Wodonga health community that we have ever seen, and the planning and design process, as comprehensive as it will be, will ultimately be how the final project and planning scope is decided and will further develop and evolve through the life of this project.

We know what life is like for our cross-border communities, and we have got some very strong advocates for cross-border communities in this place. Currently patients must travel back and forth to receive the help they need, but the changes we are making will allow patients to be treated in world-class medical facilities under one sort of big interstate roof, if you will. This combination of the facilities will see the residents of Albury–Wodonga have increased access to a wide array of health services, and this is just another commitment to the community by the Allan Labor government. On top of, of course, our massive investment we are also putting one of our priority primary care clinics in Wodonga as part of the 29 priority primary care clinics being rolled out right across the state. I am really delighted actually to have an opportunity to talk about health and a focus particularly on regional health and the work of the Allan Labor government. Of course I need to reaffirm that this is a substantial investment, and we must get it right. It is $558 million. The track record speaks for itself: we are investing in our regions, and we are doing it more so than any other government.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (10:08): I am pleased to rise in support of this motion, and at the outset I would also like to acknowledge the advocacy and work on this matter undertaken by my Greens colleague in New South Wales Dr Amanda Cohn. The Albury–Wodonga catchment area is approximately 300,000 people. That is bigger than our second city in Victoria, Greater Geelong. The border towns of Albury and Wodonga are no strangers to complexity when it comes to accessing government services like health care. For years they have had to navigate an increasingly fragmented health service that straddles both towns, and what has evolved has really left them with significant safety issues. The most obvious example is that currently maternity and ICU services are on different sides of the Murray River. Not only is there an impractical and sometimes illogical split of services, the roles and responsibilities of the New South Wales and Victorian governments for everything from clinical governance to data collection, enterprise bargaining agreements and infrastructure investment is very complex, and from the community’s perspective this has often led to some confusion and challenges with getting transparent and timely information and responses. Not only has this contributed to implications for patient safety, but there are also impacts on morale for staff trying to work across these two systems.

It has been known for a long time that a new hospital is required to address some of these concerns, and a 2021 master plan identified that a single-site hospital for acute services was needed – and importantly, it recommended a greenfield site. Instead, New South Wales and Victoria decided on a different path, developing a brownfield site that we have, as Ms Lovell has outlined, recently learned will not actually end up consolidating acute services onto one site, which was one of the drivers for undertaking this investment and this change in the first place. So millions and millions of dollars are going to be spent, and we are still going to have some of these issues with acute services being split across both sides of the border. The problems with this approach are many and have been well ventilated by communities in both Albury and Wodonga. Councils have made it really clear, the staff who work at these services have made it very clear, as have many, many others in the community.

It is worth noting that the communities in regional areas like Albury and Wodonga are heavily invested in their health services, much more so than in metro areas, because these are often a really core part of the community’s identity. They not only provide services for the community, but they are often one of the major employers, so they are a really important part of the community. They understand the services and what they need, and yet it is really disappointing that what I have heard from so many people is that the Victorian government has not adequately engaged with these communities. They have not listened to what these communities know and understand about what their communities need and how to improve the health services, and when challenged about their plans the government has doubled down and said, ‘Nope, this is what we’re doing and it’s terrific.’

Worse, I think, has been the failure to be open and transparent about the basis for the decision to go ahead with a brownfield site as opposed to the greenfield site recommendation from that 2021 master plan. The community has been asking, ‘Why? Why have you gone down this path? Where’s the business case? What is the rationale for this? Provide us with some evidence.’ And they have been met with silence, so that lack of transparency I think has been almost as bad as the decision that seems to go against what the community has been asking for. We think if the government has a great rationale for this, fine, but be transparent with the community. Give them the information and explain why. Therefore we are very supportive of this documents motion. Transparency is the very least that the communities of Albury and Wodonga deserve.

Motion agreed to.