Questions without notice and ministers statements
Triple Zero Victoria
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:00): My question is for the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, last week Triple Zero’s computer-aided dispatch system crashed, forcing staff to resort to pen and paper. Today, Triple Zero’s annual report revealed a deficit of $81 million, with call-taking, dispatch and data and information being cut by over $38 million. Is the government putting the lives of Victorians at risk because it has simply run out of money?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:01): You have covered a few topics there, Ms Crozier. What I can say at the outset is that I am incredibly proud of the workforce at TZV. They do an incredible job year in, year out. They have one of the most difficult jobs there is. I sit down regularly and plug into the calls that they receive. They do not know what they are getting until they pick up the phone. They cannot see what is going on. They have got to ask the right questions and rely on those from the public. In relation to how many calls they receive, just for some context, during the period of 2023–24 TZV answered 2.9 million calls. That is around one every 11 seconds. It is an extraordinary amount of people that rely on Triple Zero – 7890 calls a day. In relation to the specifics of the deficit that you talked about, I do just want to correct the record in relation to that and explain that. They recorded an $80.98 million deficit in 2023–24 largely due to the transfer of emergency services communications contracts to the Department of Justice and Community Services, which presents in their annual report as a loss.
In relation to the investment in TZV, we have invested millions of dollars in TZV. We have supported them to recruit more and more staff. In 2023–24 the total headcount increased by 50 from 1424 to 1474. There are around 1275 people in that organisation that are able to answer the calls when they come in. As you can appreciate with the numbers that I was talking about, they are receiving more calls now than they did during the COVID period. The amount of people that are relying on TZV each and every day is at COVID levels. It is the new normal. This is an amazing workforce. They have the support of the government. They have the investment that they need, and very, very soon I will have more to say about the CAD system that Mr Mulholland asked me about yesterday, which will be a vital investment in the future of this amazing organisation.
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:03): Thank you, Minister. Can you guarantee that Triple Zero’s CAD system, as it is referred to, will not crash again during the busy summer months when Victorians are most at risk from emergencies such as fires, heatwaves and drownings?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:03): I cannot give that guarantee. No-one would be able to give that guarantee. That is why –
Georgie Crozier interjected.
Jaclyn SYMES: It does not keep crashing. Yes, there was an outage last week that you have indicated on 20 November that lasted for 2 hours. There were around 700 calls during that period. They are trained to revert to a manual system to ensure that Victorians still get the service they need. We have invested and announced that we will be releasing the tender in relation to a new CAD system. Can I guarantee that the system will not crash? When it went down last week, we had not had any issues in the 18 months prior to that. I want to make sure that we are supporting the workforce, investing in the CAD system as it exists so it can continue to serve the Victorian community whilst we build the brand new one, which will be fit for purpose and ensure that the future of that organisation is even stronger than it is today.