Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Committees

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Reference

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:03): I move:

That this house requires the Legal and Social Issues Committee to inquire into, consider, and report, no later than 31 August 2025, on the core issues impacting the management and functions of Ambulance Victoria, including but not limited to:

(1) issues involving call taking, dispatch, ambulance ramping, working conditions and workloads of paramedics;

(2) procurement practices, including contract management and oversight, and their adequacy in ensuring transparency, fairness, and value for public funds and identification of any systemic patterns of mismanagement or lack of oversight;

(3) allegations of fraud and embezzlement and the adequacy of financial controls and oversight to prevent misconduct;

(4) governance and accountability;

(5) the workplace culture within Ambulance Victoria, with a focus on occupational health and safety impacts, including to the morale and wellbeing of paramedics and employees; and

(6) any other related matters the committee considers relevant.

I think every Victorian understands the issues that are going on, because not only is there a great deal of media interest in the number of ambulances ramping outside hospitals across our state but patients and their families are being affected. People are very aware of the situation. In the motion, I am looking into – and I will come back to the ramping issue – issues involving call taking, dispatch, ambulance ramping, working conditions and workloads of paramedics; the procurement practices, including contract management and oversight; allegations of fraud and embezzlement and the adequacy of financial controls and oversight to prevent misconduct within AV; governance and accountability; the workplace culture within Ambulance Victoria; and other related matters.

Concerningly, last night 1 per cent of ambulances were available for the Victorian public – 1 per cent. That means that 99 per cent of ambulances were in use, ramped, but could not be utilised for sick and needy Victorians. I find that extraordinary. No code red, no warnings to the public – 1 per cent of ambulances were available. It is not just last night when this happened; it is a continual pattern. There is no recognition by the government around the seriousness of this issue, and there are no warnings to the public around the seriousness of this issue. On Friday night – and Ms Lovell is in the house; I know she has been very concerned about what is happening in her area – there was a 7-hour wait for care at the Goulburn Valley base hospital in Shepparton. On Monday night there were 130 ambulances ramped at one stage, but at the peak there were up to 167. These are extraordinary numbers, so it is no wonder that there is so much frustration around the work of the paramedics, who are doing what they are doing. They are doing a phenomenal job in attending to what they need to do to care for sick Victorians and those Victorians who need emergency care.

As I said, the 1 per cent issue of ramping last night is not a one-off. It is happening day in, day out. As paramedics say to me, this is the disaster response that is business as usual. This happens every day. When I asked them ‘What about AV’s own plan around dealing with those issues around shortages, the extreme workload and demand ERP sub-plan?’ the answer came back ‘Well, the government changed the goalposts and they’ve manipulated that.’ But this plan does not stray away from the fact. It states that a code orange is actual or anticipated delays between 2 to 3 hours past target response times and less than 5 per cent availability. Code red delays are greater than 3 hours past the target response timeframes and ‘Consider after orange escalation for 4 hours.’ But it is talking about less than 5 per cent of fleet availability as well.

So those issues around what is required for the extreme workload and demand, as I said, are actually business as usual now for Ambulance Victoria. And it is increasingly frustrating for paramedics, who want to get out onto the road and do what they need to do, to be stuck ramped when the government has not fixed the issues within our emergency departments – fixed those issues that are clogging the system – where you cannot get the patients through the system. This is not as a result of COVID; these issues were building prior to COVID. The government have not catered for an increasing population in the way Victoria has increased fairly significantly over the last decade, and they have not really catered for the demands of the public with the complexity of their health. At the time, through COVID, I was saying, ‘If you delay these services and surgeries and screenings, you’re going to get a sicker population.’ Well, that is exactly what is happening, and now we have got ambulances that are being taken out of their areas and taken into other areas because there is just no coverage in regional areas.

It was on Monday night, again, that there was just no MICA ambulance somewhere in regional Victoria. It was a significant area – I just cannot quite recall – where there was no MICA ambulance available because everyone was working on another sick patient in the area and there was nothing around to assist in the workload. As the news was breaking, the 6 pm news on Monday referred to this issue:

Chaos is unfolding outside Victorian hospitals, with more than 130 ambulances waiting outside with nowhere to go.

Only 12 per cent of ambulances available in the state are available to respond to a medical emergency …

said Channel 9.

As I mentioned, at the peak there were 167 ambulances waiting outside emergency departments. As I said, it was particularly bad in regional areas. In Bendigo last night, the Premier’s electorate, there were no paramedics to treat patients between Melbourne and Mildura because paramedics were treating a patient waiting on a chair in a hallway. That is the frustration about what paramedics are saying to me and they are saying to others, what the reality of the situation is. When we are talking about ramping, it is real and it is significant. In the words of one paramedic to me, ‘There is massive ramping across the state. It is not a one-off. It happens all the time.’

Is it any wonder that we have got paramedics exhausted and wanting to understand what on earth is going on around ambulance ramping. Look at the dispatch system – we hear over and over again that ambulances are called out to minor cases. You can understand that happening occasionally or you can understand, for various reasons, why that might happen. When I speak to paramedics who have been overseeing the Triple Zero Victoria call takers, they have got clinical expertise and they are guiding them, but their workplace has been shut down and they have to move to a centralised system in Melbourne because a provisional improvement notice could not be fixed in time. WorkSafe went in and looked at it and that PIN could not be fixed in time, so what do they do? They shut that office down and moved those paramedics to Melbourne. This is what is happening. I think we need to understand those workloads and the working conditions of paramedics to understand the full extent of how the system is operating.

I want to move to the next point in my motion, and it is around procurement practices, including contract management and oversight. Back in 2022, just prior to the last state election, in the seat of South Barwon the government promised $30.4 million for the Armstrong Creek ambulance station. Other stations were costing around a tenth of that – $3 million to $4 million. Melton West had a budget of $2.875 million. The now disgraced then Labor MP Mr Cheeseman was defending that amount of money, although he could not explain that amount of money. $30.4 million for that ambulance station, and there is no accountability or transparency for the Victorian taxpayer to understand how that ambulance station cost $30.4 million. How? We need to understand what on earth is happening around these procurement issues, around the contracts that are being put in place by the government, by the Victorian Health Building Authority and the work they are doing in building these public infrastructure assets, and understand how that money is being spent, because it is a lot of money. It must be gold plated to have $30.4 million spent on it.

While I am talking about the transparency, we have had in recent days a shocking story about alleged fraud and embezzlement in the payroll department of Ambulance Victoria, an issue that was known by Ambulance Victoria not for a couple of weeks or a couple of months but for many months – 18 months. They have had a private investigator in there looking at all this, looking at what is happening in their payroll where millions of dollars were embezzled by employees. I was first alerted to this by the father of a paramedic who wrote to me some time ago. This really sparked my attention, and I did raise it in the house at one point. It was sent to the Minister for Health too. I do not think he ever got a response from her, but I certainly did and I followed up and hence I started to dig. He said:

Have you any idea of the effect the incompetency of the payroll department at Ambulance Victoria … is having on its employees?

My daughter, now a single mum, through no choice of her own, a MICA paramedic, single responder is now $3,200 out of pocket, because of the inability of the AV payroll department to properly record her shifts and apply the pay rates appropriate to those shifts and the hours of overtime that she has worked?

This, as he went on to say, was not a one-off occurrence; it happened regularly. As was highlighted to me, the complaints were going in via these paramedics, who were doing their work, putting in their time sheets for the work that they were doing, and yet they were being short-changed. Those complaints were by not one person but dozens. Goodness knows how many paramedics were making complaints. It was all looked over – ‘Nothing to see here.’ When the news finally broke we got some lame excuse from the Premier and the health minister. It is not good enough for the executive of AV to not be undertaking what they need to do to get to the bottom of paying our paramedics properly. Also, what is happening to taxpayers money? They are actually paying for those employees – and for their pay, I might add, as well.

There are more issues I unfortunately do not have the time to go into on this issue. I do think an inquiry needs to look into the issues around various procurement episodes and systems that are in place but also this issue that I referred to around the fraud and embezzlement, because I have no faith in the government doing any independent review whatsoever. It will be an absolute whitewash and ‘Nothing to see here’, and I think the Victorian public deserves to have full transparency around what on earth has happened, how it got to that point, how long it has been going on for and what we need to do to fix it up.

The other issue I wanted to talk about was the governance and accountability element of this motion. This is a very important agency. It does extremely important work for the Victorian community. We need it to be strong and robust. We need it to be working as effectively as it possibly can. This motion is not going after any one individual. It is looking at what is happening within the organisation so that we can fix it, because it is having an impact on patients. It is putting the lives of patients at risk, and it is certainly having a big impact on the morale of our paramedics. When you speak to paramedics, they say that morale has never been so low. They are worn out and they are exhausted, but they are also frustrated because they know the issues that are occurring and they feel like they are not being listened to. They want it fixed too because when it gets fixed they can actually do the work that they have been trained to do and that they want to do. They want to care for sick and very significantly ill Victorians who may need their care at a time of need or indeed in a time of emergency.

What really concerns me is if our system is so stretched and under so much pressure, there are so many issues that are really not insignificant issues. They are very significant issues within Ambulance Victoria, and we have this very regular occurrence of having very limited availability of ambulances on the road to care for Victorians, wherever that may be across the state. Even in terms of what is happening with not only our on-road but our fixed-wing and chopper air ambulances as well, we need to ensure that it is all operating and working sufficiently. When you have got 1 per cent availability and when you have got 167 ambulances ramped outside hospitals, there is a massive problem. What is concerning to these paramedics and others is if we are operating like this all the time, what would happen if we had – God forbid – a disaster, a massive requirement where we needed these emergency vehicles to be attending to some horrific or tragic event? I do not want that to occur, obviously, but the reality is that big accidents happen, other incidents occur, and you need a huge response.

They are saying, ‘How do we deal with that, when 1 per cent of the fleet is available and that’s business as usual?’ That is a really terrifying thought, and I think that is what concerns me and many paramedics around their ability to be able to respond to the needs of the Victorian community. There are some issues around the governance and accountability in relation to addressing these issues. We do not need things papered over. We do not need things to be covered up as the government constantly talks about funding. But when you have got funding that is being embezzled, where you have got contracts that are being awarded at $30.4 million and there is no understanding of how that money has actually been spent, Victorians deserve to have better governance over the operation of not only the practical nature of Ambulance Victoria but also those issues internally that I have spoken of.

As I said, there have been some issues around the morale of Ambulance Victoria and the occupational health and safety impacts. I mentioned the WorkSafe investigation into a workplace in Ballarat. The government could not resolve that, so they shut the office down and moved the workers to Melbourne. That is how they are responding to these areas where there are problems in the workplace. I do not think that is at all satisfactory. I think that is a cop-out. Why are we having multiple WorkSafe officers going over there and giving PINs and the government and others are just saying, ‘Nothing to see here, and by the way, we’ll move those workers elsewhere so we can just paper over it’? That is a cover-up. That is a cover-up of a workplace that is not safe and has been identified as not being safe, and what do the government and AV do? They move the workers.

Unless we know the extent of what is going on with all of these issues that I have mentioned, we are not going to fix the problem, and it is going to put Victorian lives at risk. They are already at risk when you have only got 1 per cent of ambulances available or when you have got no ambulances available between Mildura and Melbourne. That is a very long distance, and it is a very concerning aspect of what is happening.

I know the government does not want this inquiry. I would say to them, ‘Don’t be afraid of this inquiry. Support it. Use it as an opportunity to look at the issues and to fix the problems.’ We have got very significant problems in this state right across health, and Ambulance Victoria is no different from any issues within the health system. I say to the government: you need to support this inquiry so we can get it up and get some understanding of the true extent of the issues and provide some solutions, because as the government, you are not doing a very good job and the issues are just getting worse. I urge everyone to support this important motion.

Ryan Batchelor: On a point of order, Acting President, I just seek your guidance. Ms Crozier’s motion, in seeking to refer a matter to the Legal and Social Issues Committee, sets out relevant terms of reference in the scope of the inquiry. There is a part of the language of the motion which may presuppose some matters that the committee might then find in the course of its inquiry. President Atkinson in 2013, on page 157 of Rulings from the Chair, spoke about the importance of motions not presupposing, pre-empting or being prejudicial to the outcomes of an inquiry. I am concerned that the words ‘the core issues impacting’ presuppose that those are impacting the management and functions of Ambulance Victoria, and that it might be beneficial to the Legal and Social Issues Committee, of which I am a member – and we would have the task of undertaking this inquiry – to be able to do so without those words in the motion that have the potential to prejudice or pre-empt the outcome. I am just seeking some guidance there, and I am happy to –

Georgie CROZIER: On the point of order, Acting President, I think what Mr Batchelor is referring to is the allegations of fraud – correct? – and the investigation on that.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, what are you referring to? Because there is nothing untoward in this inquiry. If you are –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Impacting? We are talking about the core issues impacting the management and functions of Ambulance Victoria. There are many issues that are actually impacting the functions and management of Ambulance Victoria. So I am seeking some clarity.

Ryan Batchelor: Further to the point of order, Acting President, I am not suggesting that the issues enumerated in (1) to (6) are or are not relevant. I think it would be for the committee to determine whether they are or are not relevant, and that would be the purpose of having the inquiry. I raise this not because of this particular issue but because at the moment we as members of the Council have a number of inquiries before us. There are many referrals being made to the standing committees of the Council – I sit on many of those committees – and it is helpful for that process –

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Ryan Batchelor: You asked a question, and I am trying to explain why I am raising it. It is helpful for the committee to make sure that the terms of reference that come to it give it a level playing field or a broad scope. I am concerned that the words ‘the core issues impacting’ presupposes that those are the core issues, and I think it would be helpful if those words were not in the motion.

Georgie CROZIER: I say again that I do not believe there is a point of order, but in relation to the motion, these are the issues. The terms of reference are very clear around the core issues impacting the management and function, and I have listed them. I could have listed some more and been more specific, but in the interests of the house I have just left them as those six points. I do believe the terms of reference are in order given the way that I have worded them.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): My ruling in relation to this is that procedurally the motion is in order, and if the house wishes to make an amendment, it may choose to do so.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:27): I now rise to speak on the substance of the motion, and I will obviously get to the substance of the interchange on the point of order. I will do that in a minute.

Ms Crozier has raised important matters. Ambulance Victoria and the provision of ambulance services in the state of Victoria are an incredibly important part of our health system. Our paramedics do an outstanding job in responding to Victorians who need help, who need assistance, and they do so all day, every day and all night, every night – they are available when they are needed. What is also clear is that over the terms of this government, the Labor government has invested considerably to support our ambulance services. We have invested in them since the day we were elected, ending the war that the previous government had with the paramedics and ambulance services. We put an additional $2 billion into our ambulance services, which has seen the on-road workforce in Ambulance Victoria increase by over 50 per cent since we came to government. The result of that investment was that until the pandemic we had some of the best response times on record – 10 per cent higher than what we inherited when we came to office – and the investment, the care and the attention that the Labor government put into our ambulance services were clearly demonstrating that it was delivering.

Obviously there was a significant event with the pandemic – a significant health event that has had significant ramifications for many in our community and many institutions in our community. The ongoing effects of that pandemic are being felt in a wide range of areas. One of those is that the demand for ambulance services, for our paramedics, is currently now 35 per cent higher than prepandemic levels. The most recent quarter was the biggest quarter in the history of Ambulance Victoria. There has been significant investment, a global health event sending shock waves across the community and massively increased demand for our ambulance services, yet this year we are seeing our paramedics arriving 27 seconds faster, which is a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but in a statistical sense it is very important to see that response times have improved year on year.

This government is absolutely committed to continuing to support our ambulance services. We do so wholeheartedly and consistently. As I said, we have increased the number of on-road staff at Ambulance Victoria by more than 50 per cent. There are over 2200 more paramedics on our roads. Since 2015 we have delivered 35 new ambulance stations across the state, with another 16 in planning. Those new ambulance stations are important for improving the working conditions of our paramedics and our ambulance services staff and for ensuring that the environment in which our life-saving emergency care workers and emergency response workers work is first class, is world class.

This year’s budget provided an additional $146 million to support a range of operational priorities for Ambulance Victoria, including medium-acuity transport services and expanding Ambulance Victoria’s secondary triage. That together is a demonstration of our commitment and our investment, but you cannot just see the support we are providing to our paramedics, our ambulances and Ambulance Victoria in terms of the investment we are making just in that organisation and in that service. Across the health system what we are also doing is investing in ways to get treatment and support to those who might be thinking that they need to call an ambulance, providing them with more accessible ways of accessing health care first, to check. That is really the role that Victoria’s new nation-leading Victorian Virtual Emergency Department is doing. It is giving people who might think about picking up the phone and calling an ambulance the opportunity to speak with a health professional through the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department before they pick up the phone, allowing the capacity that exists within Ambulance Victoria to be directed to the most acute cases of need. The virtual ED has seen a diversion rate of 87 per cent in the last quarter. Our response times are better than comparable jurisdictions, particularly those in New South Wales, and we have got more paramedics per head of population than any other jurisdiction in the country, well above the national average. This is undoubtedly a government that is supporting and investing in our ambulance services.

But there is demand. Of course there is demand, and what we see right across our health sector is that, particularly since the global pandemic, in the last couple of years there has been increased demand for ambulance services and for our paramedics; there is increased demand for our health services. That is why we are investing so much in our health services. That is why Labor will always support our paramedics and Labor will always support our health services, and we will support them with investment in the workforce, in facilities and in infrastructure.

Obviously, as I said, there is demand. Ms Crozier’s motion today seeks to establish an inquiry and ask the Legal and Social Issues Committee to look at a range of factors relevant to the management and functions of Ambulance Victoria. Prior to my contribution I raised a point of order trying to clarify some words that I thought might have, in framing the terms of reference sent to the Legal and Social Issues Committee, pre-empted some of the matters that were the core issues impacting on the management and functions of Ambulance Victoria. The reason I take issue with this, and it may seem somewhat pedantic, is it is important for committees in exercising our functions to do so in a way that is both in reality and in perception free of any kind of predetermined outcome. The committees need to actually and in perception approach the task in front of them without predetermined points of view, without predetermined positions. I think the experience that many of us have had on parliamentary committees in the course of this Parliament – I am new to the Parliament this parliamentary session – is that we are working at our best when we come with an open mind and we look at the evidence before us. I think we have demonstrated the ability across the chamber to do that work, which is why I think it is important, and incumbent upon those who bring motions to this place to set up further referrals to inquiries, that we do so in a way that presents them as objectively as we possibly can and sets the inquiry field as neutrally as we possibly can. Therefore I would like to move an amendment to Ms Crozier’s motion. I move:

That the words ‘the core issues impacting’ be omitted.

We will circulate that amendment. In moving it we are just seeking to make sure that the consideration that the Legal and Social Issues Committee will give to this matter, should the chamber agree at the conclusion of the debate to the referral, is given in a way that is open and objective. Certainly that is the approach that as a member of that committee I would absolutely and fundamentally welcome. Should this inquiry be given to us, I am sure we will do a very thorough job of examining the matters before it, and I think that the small change that I am suggesting to the terms of reference will help us achieve that. And with that, I might leave my remarks there.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (14:37): The Greens will be supporting this motion today, although we hope that by the time the inquiry rolls around, the issues that it seeks to address will be resolved or there will at least be a clearer pathway towards the resolution. Can I say at the outset that we recognise how hard people right across this system work – whether it is the call takers, the paramedics or those who work in our EDs, everyone is doing their best. Even relevant government departments and the minister, I think, have a genuine desire to do the best for Victorians in terms of the ambulance system.

But it is undeniable that Victoria’s ambulance system is under immense pressure. This is less due to a lack of good intention and more the result of intractably poor system organisation – both the ambulance system itself and the broader health system. We have long been hearing from paramedics on the ground about challenges they are facing and moreover the difficulties that they are having in finding a way to resolve these. In particular, poor rostering practices and inadequate call-taking, dispatch and triage systems are driving a misallocation of resources and feeding pervasive low morale and burnout. Ambulances that could and should be on the road attending to people with emergencies are being diverted to inappropriate jobs because of the rigidity of the triage system used by call takers. While the strictly protocolised system that we have reduces the risk of a patient’s urgency being underestimated, it does mean that many clearly non-urgent cases are being forced to have a lights-and-sirens ambulance response. Missing an urgent case can easily turn into tragedy, and it is understandable why no-one would want that to occur. But the flip side of being overly inclusive and cautious is that this approach spreads finite resources too thinly, so then ambulances are not available to attend those who need them most and so then tragedies can and have occurred as a result.

To illustrate what this is like for a paramedic on the ground, I have been told of a case where paramedics were made to attend a toothache, knowing it was a toothache but having no ability to exercise any discretion, because the call takers had to categorise jaw pain as the same urgency as a potential cardiac chest pain since cardiac pain can be felt in the jaw and that is what their algorithm told them they had to do. Then while they were attending this case, they were hearing about a genuinely urgent call on their radio that they could not get to. This is the sort of thing that they are talking about when they are saying it contributes to low morale. Also there is widespread acknowledgement that there is an issue, but from the paramedics’ perspective there does not seem to be any meaningful progress to resolve it. We know that getting the balance right with the call-taking triage and dispatch system is really difficult. We appreciate that this is a sticky issue for the government, its agencies and paramedics. We also do not know how frequent this sort of example that I have provided is occurring, given we are largely relying on anecdotes, but at the very least our paramedics are experiencing these issues frequently enough to regularly contact us about them.

In the absence of another path forward perhaps an inquiry provides an opportunity to get a proper sense of the scale of these sorts of problems and develop some options to overcome them. But even with better triaging and dispatch systems the reality is that people are getting sicker and we are seeing more demand for acute health care. There is not just one factor driving this. It is symptomatic of a whole society that is not geared towards keeping people healthy. It is not about the amount of money that is spent on health care, although spending more money on health care is always a good thing. It is a good investment from my perspective. But the whole approach that governments take to thinking about the health of our population is not right. There will never be enough hospital beds if we keep going the way we are. We are trapped in a vicious cycle of more sick people needing more acute services, and this will not end until we see a major shift in priorities from state and federal governments.

Foremost, we need to massively increase our preventative health spend and look at this in a holistic way right across government. Urban planning that promotes physical activity; fresh, nutritious, affordable food; adequate housing; clean air; reducing alcohol and gambling harms; reducing stress that comes from poverty and extreme financial pressure – these are all examples of things that have a huge impact on our health but are never considered that way. To put it another way: if people could more readily afford a roof over their heads and put food on the table, you would see a lot less sick people. Although we do not always like to think about it, COVID has not gone away either, and it is still driving significantly higher demand for health care. This is not just about deferred care. There is an ongoing increase in demand due to both acute infection and the longer term risks of COVID like cardiac events and strokes. Obviously returning to lockdowns and mask mandates might not be on the cards, but other measures to reduce the burden of COVID should still be a priority for this government.

We also need more investment in community-based care: primary care, dental care, specialist outpatients, in-home care and medical care in aged care facilities. If people can receive the care that they need in home or in the community before they get really sick, they will not need an ambulance or a hospital bed in the first place. That is better for everyone, not to mention a whole lot cheaper. If they do need to go to hospital, with more community-based care, people can get out of hospital faster, freeing up beds for those who actually need them, which makes it easier for people to move out of emergency and up into a hospital bed, which then means we do not get the ramping issues that we are seeing. Yet investing in these sorts of issues, investing in these parts of the health system, is simply never prioritised, because they are not a kneejerk response to negative press, and investing in them does not allow for making flashy announceables or cutting a ribbon. While this inquiry is very unlikely to focus on these kinds of issues, I will continue to use every opportunity I get in this place to point out the desperate need to focus on health promotion, prevention and community-based care because it is the root cause of many of the other problems we end up debating here.

With respect to the other issues that this inquiry will focus on, including those related to governance, these are once again issues that have been raised with us by paramedics over a long period of time. We recognise that the government is aware of these and that there are many processes underway to try and address them. We sincerely hope that that work continues to progress regardless of the outcome of the vote on this motion, as the shared objective here should be to have a happy and healthy paramedic workforce and ambulance services that best meet Victorians’ needs. We also recognise that there is a risk that comes with inquiries – that the public airing of grievances may further impact morale. However, that is already happening. Without an inquiry we already have these issues being aired regularly in the media highlighting these problems. At the very least with an inquiry there is a constructive purpose working towards an understanding of the problems and developing some practical recommendations.

Paramedics need to have confidence in the system that they work in; we all need to have confidence in the system that they are working in, and the reality is at the moment many of them do not. For that reason, once again, the Greens will be supporting this inquiry motion today.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:45): I am pleased to stand and speak on motion 520 from my colleague Georgie Crozier. Naturally, Ambulance Victoria is one of the most essential of essential services; I cannot think of any other organisation that has a more immediate effect on the lives of Victorians, and having a successful, well-functioning ambulance service can perhaps have no higher priority in this place. I have a nephew who is a paramedic. I know firsthand from his anecdotes and stories exactly how hardworking and how devoted our ambulance workers and paramedics are.

There is one very strong hallmark of any organisation that is in trouble and struggling bad, and that is when an organisation loses the ability to reform itself. I think we see that with Ambulance Victoria now, because what we have are endemic problems, systemic problems, problems with basic governance, problems with basic accountability and problems in the culture itself, and as per the terms of reference of the proposed inquiry, there are many other issues as well. When we talk about endemic, the issues of call taking and dispatch, ambulance ramping and the incredible working hours that we expect our paramedics to perform are not new issues; they are endemic issues. These are issues that the organisation itself has not been able to reform. When we talk about systemic, we know that the procurement practices, the contract management, the oversights and the adequacy to ensure transparency and fairness and value for public funds have problems as well. They are systemic problems. They are not problems that the organisation has been able to resolve internally or with the government over years.

Then we come to the allegations of fraud and embezzlement and the adequacy of government controls and oversight to prevent that kind of misconduct. Now we are talking about basic organisational governance that any organisation, whether they are public or private, must abide by. If your systems internally are breaking down there, that is a very, very strong canary in the coalmine that the organisation has some genuine fundamental problems. This fraud has been going on for years. As someone who worked in financial services, if people collude within an organisation, you cannot prevent a fraud, but you must have the systems to identify a fraud once it has occurred. If your organisation’s internal governance has broken down to the extent that you do not have the systems and the governance and the oversight where you can identify the fraud and you do not identify it for a number of years – that is, you have gone through audits, you have gone through financial years, you are out the other side and you still have not identified it – then you have a genuine governance problem within your organisation that you need to address. Again, this is systematic; this is a number of years.

Once an organisation has lost the ability to reform itself, it is in genuine trouble, and you must then look deeply at why. Why is it breaking down internally, why is it no longer meeting the goals to which it subscribes and what are both the internal and the external factors that make that so? That is why an inquiry is important. We are not just talking about the internal factors; we are talking about the external factors, and in order to objectively look at those external factors you need an inquiry. A government simply reviewing itself is really an internal review. It does not give the objectivity or the scrutiny that this requires.

This problem manifests in many ways. It manifests in our lives, and we have all heard the statistics of ambulance ramping, the lack of availability and the effect on lives. For every large headline tragedy that there is, and there are too many of those, we know there are many, many tiny tragedies from people waiting for an ambulance in a time of crisis and trauma. There are many, many families whose problems go on many years beyond because of our failure to address the inherent problems that we have got here. I would like to take up my Greens colleague’s comments on community health and early intervention. I think this is a really excellent example because there is a fantastic organisation in Riddells Creek called HMS Community paramedics. They do the early intervention with qualified paramedics who are not in the ambulance system, who are retired or have stepped down for any other reason. They estimate that they take 40 ambulance trips off the road per day with the work they do, because they go and change the bandage or they go and dispense the pill. This organisation and a few others similar to them have been banging on the door of government to say, ‘Let us have a role. Let us have a large role because we are a large part of that solution,’ and I really believe in that as a solution.

This inquiry is a wonderful opportunity for us to get people like that to the table and help them be part of the solution, because that is what we want. We want a solution. If it cannot reform itself, it needs help to be reformed. We need an inquiry to do that. If we all go in with a positive mindset that we are looking out for the interests of Victorians, we can do so.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:51): I also rise to speak on the motion which has been put forward to us today, motion 520 by Ms Crozier. At the outset, as I suspect all members have already done, I wish to express my acknowledgement of and my appreciation for the amazing, amazing work that our paramedics do each and every day. Any of us who have been perhaps unfortunate by circumstance but fortunate by their presence and have had to deal with them over any time knows about, without a shadow of a doubt, their professionalism and the way they go about doing their work. I want to especially acknowledge them today and indeed other health services workers, be they in the emergency rooms in the hospitals or in the call centres in Triple Zero Victoria. I particularly appreciated the chance to catch up with a good friend of mine who works in that space just recently as well and hear firsthand some of her perspectives of that element.

I think I will be now the third speaker in a row to say that our ambulance system does not operate in a vacuum. It operates in a broader system right from, at the very earliest, those health prevention measures, from those community campaigns right through to the call centres, through to the ambulances themselves and the incredible work that our paramedics do, be they regular or MICA or other sorts of paramedics, through to of course the hospital system. It is important that we note that in context when we discuss the quite frankly dramatic investments that have been made by this government and will continue to be made and will need to continue to be made. They will absolutely continue to be made for our hardworking paramedics and for all who work in and receive care from our broader healthcare system. It is why we have seen record investment in hospitals in this state. It is why we saw ambulance response times, since coming into government, go from some of the lowest on record to some of the highest on record – the best response times on record prior to the pandemic. It is why this government is invested and committed to delivering those outcomes again and working with our health services to get the best outcomes we can, obviously for them but also critically for the wider Victorian community.

It is also why just last week we announced a further major investment into our hospital networks to ensure that they have the resources that they need to deal with the dramatic increase that we have indeed seen just this year in case loads right across our health system. When you look at the state government’s investment in priority primary care centres, again we are stepping in where the federal government failed to do its job quite a few years ago. When you look at the other extreme end in hospitals, providing those resources will make a difference. I know one thing that will make a very significant difference in my community is the recently announced expansion of the Casey Hospital emergency room. This is a significant project that is going to make a very big difference for my local community in the south-east. Casey is a wonderful hospital. It is a very fast growing hospital, as it should be because it is in a very fast growing region of Victoria.

We are also served by many other wonderful hospitals in the Monash Health network, including the Monash Medical Centre, Dandenong Hospital, Monash Children’s Hospital and of course the outstanding nation-leading Victorian Heart Hospital, which is in that Monash Health network as well. They all service the Casey–Cardinia region, but within Casey–Cardinia itself, a region which now has a population roughly equivalent to the size of Tasmania’s, Casey Hospital, as that first point of call, that local hospital, has been doing some great work. It is really important that we continue to invest, which is why I am so pleased to see the expansion of the emergency room at Casey Hospital, which will effectively double the capacity of that emergency room which will again help the broader healthcare system, including ambulances coming into the emergency room, making sure that that can be done as efficiently as possible.

Indeed, as well, we have the major redevelopment of Frankston Hospital in the south-east. It will be the largest hospital by some measure outside of central Melbourne – a very, very significant new hospital for this community in Frankston in the south-east. I believe my colleague Mr McIntosh referred to it as being in eastern Victoria this morning, and I will take this opportunity to correct him and say that, while it does serve his constituency in eastern Victoria, it is one in the heart of Frankston in the south-east.

Through this job, as many other members have in this place, I have had many wonderful opportunities to meet with our hardworking paramedics, be it in my own region or be it across the state. In fact I had some wonderful conversations with paramedics when we were having our regional sitting in Echuca. They came by to express their views, as they have every right to, and it was genuinely a very good opportunity for me to hear firsthand from them as well. I am very grateful to them for taking the time to run through with me and some other members – I see Mr Ettershank; I think he was there as well – their firsthand experiences and how we can do our very best for them. I am very much looking forward to seeing the continued progress when it comes to the Ambulance Victoria enterprise bargaining agreement, and I know that our very hardworking Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas is very focused on this as well. I thank her for her continued efforts to get a very good outcome, which I hope to see soon for our paramedics.

Also I have had many opportunities to meet with paramedics in my region many times, but most memorably perhaps of late was at the opening of the brand new Clyde North ambulance branch. With the huge growing area that we do have in the south-east – and as we do have across many corners of the state – it is vitally important that we continue to invest in the infrastructure that our growing suburbs need, and the Clyde North ambulance station is already servicing the community extremely well. In fact by the time of the official opening, which was some several months after the actual opening of the branch, we actually saw that something like 2000 cases had already been attended to just by that unit – as they do working with colleagues from other nearby branches and with the support from MICA paramedics and others as well. It was really quite terrific to see that branch already providing significant use and value to the community.

It is important that we do focus on continuing what is absolutely a very strong investment by this Labor government over 10 years. With a refreshed enthusiasm under our new Premier Jacinta Allan as well, it is important that we continue that work and continue to support our healthcare workers in every setting: in the ambulances, in the call centres, in the hospitals, in the primary support services and in the preventative health services too. That all goes some very great way to improving the workload of ambulance workers and paramedics. I also note Dr Mansfield’s comments in relation to some of the way cases are triaged and how perhaps that could be improved as well and ensuring that all of the people dealing with members of the public have the best support and the best resources available so that when they do make those decisions they can be ensuring that we are getting the most effective use out of our critical emergency workers and that we are not unduly burdening them. It is a very hard line to walk of course, because you do not want to see anything which would lead to a disastrously adverse outcome for someone, but it is something that the majority of our health workforce are very equipped at doing. Whatever we can do to support them in doing that as effectively as possible so that our paramedics can be focusing on the core business they are there for is something that needs to be absolutely supported.

Just some final notes: I will add my voice of support to the remarks of my colleague Mr Batchelor. In talking about the committee process, it is very important for us to remember that this is a process that should not be beset by predetermined outcomes – again, real or preperceived. A very important part of our parliamentary process is the role of parliamentary committees and the inquiries they undertake, so I voice my support for his amendment too, which goes some measure towards making the motion before us today and the terms of reference under the proposed inquiry significantly less politically predetermined. Again, this is a very important topic, so I did want to focus my remarks on what I focused on. I could spend a great deal of time highlighting the contrast with what we have seen from those opposite, not least when they privatised the Cranbourne ambulance service when they were in government once. But I think it is important to focus on the work that our healthcare workers do, and I am very much proud to be part of a government that is continuing to support our wonderful paramedics.

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (15:01): I rise to speak in support of this motion today and plan to do so very briefly because I am aware that there are plenty of members around the chamber who want to get their position on the record. But I am doing this today because I believe the state of Ambulance Victoria right now is simply untenable and it does not hurt for it to have some scrutiny by the Parliament through this very sensible motion today.

I feel like I have a unique understanding of the ambulance system after being in a relationship with a paramedic for 12 years. I think that it really shows just how dire the situation is right now that I was with him under the Napthine government when the ambulance system was at its absolute worst. The Liberals lost an election arguably on that issue, and I would say his morale at work is worse right now than it was back then. We need the ambulance service to function efficiently to ensure that we save the lives of Victorians, and the government should be in support of that. In my area in Northern Victoria, in a regional area, we know that our health system is already strained and it is already stretched. Many areas around not just the Macedon Ranges, where my office is, but other parts of northern Victoria that are even more regional do not have ambulance services right now, and it is putting so many Victorians’ lives at risk.

It is clear that Ambulance Victoria is broken, and the government must resuscitate the ambulance service, not just because it is the right thing to do but because Victorian lives depend on it. Paramedics describe it to me, as I said, as the worst time in their entire careers. They describe a slow deterioration that needs to be rectified so that we can support them in order to do their job and in order to do it well, and to protect the health and safety of all of the people that live in this state. They tell me they are drowning under the strain of unprecedented workloads – ramping, emergency resources being unnecessarily over-triaged for minor conditions and their being at risk of physical and psychological injuries. I know that the government is doing some things in order to address this, but it is simply trimming around the edges and not fixing the broader issue at hand.

I know Ms Crozier touched on this, but just last night 99 per cent of ambulances were unavailable to respond to the community, just on a normal Tuesday evening – no emergency, no unprecedented event, just a normal Tuesday evening – and this is not a rare occurrence right now. It is burning out our paramedics, and it should highlight just how desperate the situation has become. While paramedics are seeking improved pay and working conditions right now, this inquiry is so much more than that, and that is actually not the biggest issue or their biggest complaint. That is what they are saying to me. It is about fixing the fundamental broken systems within Ambulance Victoria to ensure that our paramedics are supported to do their job of saving lives. Dr Mansfield touched on this, and we know that the government and Ambulance Victoria already have processes and procedures in place and investigations occurring, but this inquiry is just a safeguard around that.

It will be the best case scenario if in a year’s time we commence this inquiry and the submission process opens and everyone can rock up and say, ‘Problem solved.’ But in my mind, knocking this inquiry back today could mean running the risk that when we reach the time when the inquiry would be taking place the situation has potentially gotten worse and we do not have this opportunity again. I commend this motion to the house, and I hope that many others across the chamber can join me in supporting our paramedics today.

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (15:05): I rise to speak in support of this motion, and I appreciate the work of Georgie Crozier presenting this with the Liberals and the Nationals. I guess it is interesting to look at the Ambulance Victoria website, because it does state:

Most importantly, if Victorians have an emergency and you need an ambulance, you will get one.

The challenge at the moment is that we are not always getting one, particularly in rural and regional areas. But I do want to start by saying – and a number of us have mentioned it – how much we appreciate the work of paramedics and MICA. I had a very close family member whose life was actually saved earlier this year because of the quick thinking of a MICA paramedic. But I guess I have also heard from people who have called 000 and have not had the assistance they needed, like a gentleman in Donald who literally needed an ambulance to transport him 200 metres over the road. Unfortunately, it took a couple of hours and the next morning he passed away.

I heard from another member of the Northern Victoria Region, who is based in Bendigo, who had severe pain in her stomach. When she dialled 000 for an ambulance, she was told that she would need to get a taxi to Bendigo Health. That is a major concern. But I guess with any of these issues that people raise with our offices, it can be just the tip of the iceberg. The Herald Sun just last month reported that there have been 28,000 taxis booked in regional areas for patients, and again that just highlights the issue that we have in front of us. I had another person locally in Bendigo attend a community forum recently. She mentioned that when she had anaphylaxis and went into shock, she had fire services turn up to assist ahead of the ambulance, which was of major concern to her at the time. We also have heard from people about cross-border issues and the challenge of the call centre not finding the closest ambulance – with the challenge of the interstate issue between New South Wales and Victoria again not being addressed.

Ambulance ramping is happening all the time across regional Victoria. I have seen it. I have seen up to 10 ambulances ramped at Bendigo Health. We know it is an issue in Wodonga. It is an issue in Shepparton. I have spoken with people who know that paramedics are spending up to 25 per cent of their shift just ramping. This is very frustrating. I know Mr Batchelor spoke earlier in his contribution on behalf of the government. He mentioned that the response times have improved, but I question whether or not we have all the data because when I have looked at the Indigo shire, which has had reportedly some of the worst response times in the state, their code zero data is not for publication. Why are we not seeing that data? Is it that bad?

I had another person recently who needed to get from the Heathcote hospital across to Bendigo Hospital. They were unable to access an ambulance at the time. So another family member, who had driven a long distance, had to drive them to Bendigo Health, where they sat in a wheelchair from 8 am to 7:30 pm, until they were actually admitted for surgery, and they remained in hospital for three days after that.

These are very serious issues, but again we are seeing that ambulances are not available. I have also heard about the workforce shortages and about the challenges with the triage of patients when they arrive from an ambulance – that there is perhaps not the staff to assist with prioritising that triage. That is something that needs to be looked at. Also, with the prioritising and assessment of what category the calls are, call centres are not equipped to reprioritise or redirect that priority. So we do not actually know from the data – there is a lack of accuracy at the moment. Committee inquiries are a fantastic process. They are a very important process because you get to hear from witnesses with all different expert backgrounds, to look into the issues, to examine the issues and to make recommendations.

I know that Labor has put forward on behalf of the government an amendment to remove some of the wording about the core issues, but we will not be accepting that recommendation. It is important, with such a big issue, to have some key areas that you are looking at, but it clearly states in the terms of reference that it is ‘including but not limited to’ so there is the ability of the committee to look into these issues further. But it is so important that we do address the issues that are in front of us today. We have a responsibility because we know when people call an ambulance, when they call 000, they are facing a very serious situation. This inquiry gives a chance for us to look at what recommendations are needed, and this will be of benefit to paramedics, to hospital staff and, most importantly, to the patients who are depending on a service when they call 000. I encourage all the chamber to support this inquiry.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:11): This motion gives me an opportunity to set the record straight a little bit and set out the facts and the difference in the approach to health and to, in particular, the ambulance service between those opposite when they were in government and the way of our government and the Labor values that we bring to focusing on health. Ambulance Victoria is at the forefront of an absolutely unprecedented demand on health services, yet at the same time Ambulance Victoria still responds to code 1 emergencies 10 per cent faster than when those opposite were in government. The most recent quarter was Ambulance Victoria’s busiest quarter on record, receiving 102,000 code 1 calls, and the national Report on Government Services shows that Victoria has better response times than New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania on all measures, and we are performing better than Queensland on three out of four of those key measures.

When those opposite were last in power, we had a broken, underfunded ambulance service with a then Liberal government waging war with the very people saving our lives. Response times went backwards even without a global pandemic. Instead of addressing the issues, those opposite just stopped releasing ambulance response times and basically hid them away, heads in the sand. More concerning was that this was not just about mismanagement of Ambulance Victoria; it was the contempt shown to paramedics, and I think that is really a terrible shame. They referred to our hardworking paramedics as lazy, greedy, entitled thugs, liars, militants and stooges, and I am sure Ambulance Victoria members have not forgotten the disgraceful insinuation of former Minister for Health David Davis, who falsely accused Ambulance Victoria of staging photos at Frankston emergency department.

Thankfully, in contrast the Allan Labor government is behind our hardworking emergency service personnel. When we came to government in 2014, we stopped the attacks on our hardworking ambulance service members. We improved the response time of code 1 emergencies to 80 per cent within 15 minutes. The response times continued to get better. In 2019 Ambulance Victoria recorded their best ever response times, prior to the pandemic. It is amazing that such an achievement can be worked through your emergency services when you work with them, not against them. Whilst I am on that, the Allan Labor government has made $2 billion worth of investment into our ambulance services, and this investment has already seen a 50 per cent increase in Ambulance Victoria’s on-road workforce. This year’s budget sees an additional $146 million to support operational priorities for Ambulance Victoria. This $146 million will ensure that paramedics have the facilities and support they need to respond quickly to emergencies and, most importantly, save Victorian lives. Of that $146 million, $27 million will go towards expanding secondary triage, and I acknowledge my colleague Mr Batchelor’s comments on this. It is a very interesting process, and it makes enormous sense. Ambulance Victoria’s secondary triage is the most comprehensive in the world. Secondary triage contacts less urgent 000 callers and connects them to care options that are better suited to their medical needs. This keeps emergency ambulances free to respond to live threats and events.

We are helping the health system grow to meet this significant demand. Eleven billion dollars has been announced in the budget to allow certainty in our health system, addressing the future needs of patients and service demands. Last week an extra $1.5 billion was announced by the Allan Labor government to support health needs and health reforms in our health system. Unlike the former Liberal government, we are not about going to war with our frontline ambos or closing or privatising our hospitals. In fact I want to thank our ambos – our paramedics – for the hard work that they do.

I must say that in my entire extended family – cousins and second cousins – there is no-one really in health. I think we probably are best described as a squeamish family. But there are two members that are involved in health, and both of them are in the ambulance service. We are very proud of them. One of them, my cousin, did nursing training, then a year at the Northern Hospital and then went on to study paramedicine at Federation University. Just to see the places in western Victoria that she has worked, the kinds of cases that she comes up against and the challenges that she has faced, I am so proud of the work that she does, and that of all of her colleagues. On top of that, there is all of the after-hours work. It is like when a baby is born. They never come between 9 and 5 – they come in the middle of the night. That is generally when most of the dramas happen healthwise as well. In doing night shifts, like in our hospitals, the ambulance service performs a very, very important role.

I am absolutely blown away by the level of expertise, knowledge and understanding of the human condition that ambos have. They are truly wonderful people who interact with the most diverse range of human beings in our society. They are often doing that at their most stressed time – not the ambos’ most stressed time but the person who has rung 000 for help. They are usually incredibly distressed. You could say that 100 per cent of the interactions of our ambulance workers are with people who are incredibly distressed. They are so skilled at calming patients down whilst at the same time conducting assessments and deciding what actions need to be taken. I am constantly amazed at the level of knowledge that they can combine with their beautiful personal style.

I think I will keep my remarks fairly much to that and basically reiterate that the Allan Labor government understands the work of the ambulance service and understands the importance of the ambulance service in the context of the broader health system. In doing that we have invested incredibly in supporting the growth of the ambulance service, in supporting the growth in complexity of the issues that have been developing and also in ensuring their ability to respond to crises like the pandemic, which none of us had experienced in our lifetimes before despite the scientific community pointing out to us that they were surprised we had not had a pandemic before now.

It really is from me a very, very big thankyou to the ambulance service in Victoria for all of the work that they do and for all of the knowledge and care that they bring to their roles. I want to say that we appreciate that there is continued stress and continued pressure as a result of the pandemic. The tail end of that pandemic is continuing at the moment, and it is health services like the ambulance service that are quietly responding to those peaks and troughs of COVID in our community even to this day. I am very proud of the service and the – (Time expired)

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (15:21): I will make a very brief contribution, probably pretty much in line with the contribution from Ms Purcell before me. I would like to first of all thank both the government and the opposition for the briefings that they provided on this motion. I think it is clear that all parties recognise the challenges that confront not simply our ambulance service but the health industry as a whole, whether that be our rapidly growing population, workforce shortages or post-COVID bulges in demand. At the same time I guess it is also really hard sometimes to get clarity as to the nature of the problem. There is so much noise in the public domain, for want of a better term – some of it valid, some of it overblown. It is very hard I think for many people to get a sense of exactly how the situation is within the service.

I can come at this with a fairly direct and personal focus. About six weeks ago, on a Thursday evening, my wife had a very bad fall at home and she sustained a significant head injury. I will not go into the gruesome details, but let us just say there was a lot of blood. We live about 10 minutes from the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the wait time for the ambulance was just under 1 hour, at which point in time we were attended by three magnificent ambos, a MICA paramedic and a two-person ambulance crew, who were just superb. They handled the situation with incredible compassion and professionalism. They then got to drive off on this quiet Thursday evening for a 5½-hour wait ramped at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, which was then followed by 19½°hours in the emergency department trying to get a bed. Based on a random sample of one, I would have to say that clearly the ambulance service is profoundly challenged. In making those comments, I would like to make it abundantly clear that in terms of both the ambos and the hospital staff they were just totally professional and committed, and I have nothing but admiration for those health professionals.

But if there was any doubt in my mind as to the severity of the situation that confronts us – and like many people in this chamber, I have spoken to a range of ambos and paramedics – clearly the system is broken and there needs to be things done. I think there is agreement within this chamber that things do need to be done. I am also aware that in saying that, there is no magic bullet that will fix the health industry or that will fix the ambulance service, because quite clearly there are major changes in terms of demand – a growing population, ageing population – that are putting major constraints on effective service delivery. That said, when I hear statements from some members here that actually things are getting better, I do find that a little challenging to accept. I am also aware that there is a lot happening between the government, health providers, the ambulance union and other key stakeholders. Those are important changes, and we wish the government and those stakeholders every success in trying to address them. I think Ms Purcell raised this before. The reality is this inquiry is not going to hit the deck for the best part of a year. I think it would be a wonderful thing if, when we come to that point, it is all fixed, but I do not think it will be. So we would suggest that given that timeframe, this is a good motion to support. It is a good thing to put a flag in the ground. We would also say, given the timeframe, there is absolutely no reason why the prospect of this inquiry should in any way interfere with important things like the enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations with the union and other systemic reforms that the government is seeking to implement. On this basis Legalise Cannabis will be supporting the motion, and we commend it to the chamber.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (15:26): I rise to support Ms Crozier’s motion and thank her for the work that she has done on this issue in particular but all also to thank all of my colleagues, less the government, for their contributions. We will not be supporting Mr Batchelor’s amendment, in particular, attempting sneakily to narrow the scope of this inquiry. The subject of this is not predetermining an outcome; it is actually looking into the core issues of what is going wrong. You literally had on Monday 99 per cent of ambulances unavailable. There was recently one MICA intensive care paramedic between Melbourne and Mildura. This is the extent of the issues.

I have chatted to a lot of my local ambulances and had long conversations with them. I know many other Labor members in the Northern Metropolitan Region have refused to meet with the ambulances. I have met with them, particularly the Craigieburn branch. The government spent millions of dollars on a new ambulance station in Yuroke, 3 kilometres up the road from the Craigieburn ambulance station. It was promised to be a 24-hour facility, right? And instead of providing additional resources to this new ambulance station, all they have done is pinch the night shift from Craigieburn ambulance station and put it over there, which means during the day it is completely empty. They have had robberies. They have had people breaking in. It is not resourced at all, which goes to show their contempt of growth area communities – absolute mismanagement. We have seen staff working shifts up to 19 hours and then being expected to drive home. That is just irresponsible. We have definitely seen, especially in the northern suburbs, shifts dropped and not picked up, which is not great at all. So I support Ms Crozier’s motion.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:29): In the interest of time, I want to just sum up very briefly. I want to thank those members for speaking and for also sharing their own personal stories and understanding the real impacts of how the ambulance service is working – the difficulties and challenges that they have – and understanding that there are some real issues impacting the delivery of services. Could I say that, in relation to the government’s amendment, as Mrs Broad has said, the coalition will not be supporting it. We need to understand those issues, those very core issues, of how the organisation is functioning and working and how that is impacting on the delivery of services – the management and the function of Ambulance Victoria itself – so we will not be supporting the government’s amendment. I urge all members to support this motion so that we can look at those issues and ensure that the Parliament does its work in providing significant recommendations to improve Ambulance Victoria services in the interests of all Victorians.

Council divided on amendment:

Ayes (13): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Noes (23): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, David Ettershank, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Adem Somyurek, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Amendment negatived.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (23): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, David Ettershank, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Adem Somyurek, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (13): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion agreed to.