Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Motions

Health services

Debate resumed.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:06): Before lunch I was speaking to my health motion that talks about the failures by the Allan Labor government in delivering services, the cuts, the health mergers and amalgamations and the lack of consultation on this very important area to communities. Last year when the amalgamations were starting to happen there was so much concern. I was out with my colleagues Cindy McLeish, Annabelle Cleeland and a number of others, and we were going around to communities speaking out in force against the amalgamations. Actually Roma Britnell is another one concerned in the western region of Victoria. Again, all of these communities came together, very concerned about the amalgamations, and I think we are seeing the consequences.

As I was saying, job losses are starting to occur, and despite the government’s repeated denials of forced mergers, it is not just me saying it; there are other people talking about the concerns that they have around it. I refer to an article in December last year ‘Shared beds, staff and radiology: the government’s plan to cut costs in our hospitals’. It is a very telling article:

Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association secretary Craig McGregor described the proposals as a “backdoor way of achieving hospital mergers”.

He went on to say:

… he was concerned that consolidating radiology services would lead to job losses, particularly among chief radiographers with local knowledge of the workforce and patient needs.

“It is potentially going to be a disaster”–

he is quoted as saying. He said:

So many services will be provided centrally that it will impact small health services through loss of jobs and visibility of staff.

And again, he talked about workforce banks as:

… ‘‘nice in theory”, it would not work because of the distances between hospitals.

Again I say we have seen that through the job losses with the linen services from Horsham to Ballarat – 2000 kilometres those workers had to travel each week on roads that are full of potholes. The government has ignored Victorian roads and regional Victorians for far too long. Those roads are dangerous, and we cannot fix them, because the state is broke.

The Auditor-General’s report today highlights the performance of major projects. On one of them it highlights the blowouts in the Frankston redevelopment. It has doubled in cost. It has been delayed. Every project this government does is delayed in time, and the costs all blow out. What is extraordinary about this report is the detail that the Auditor-General’s office have gone through in having a look at these major projects. But what I find just gobsmacking is the minister responsible, Gabby Williams, attacking the Auditor-General, saying it is shoddy methodology and talking about other aspects of this important report. I think that is just highly unnecessary. Talking about unprofessionalism, that is being unprofessional – a minister coming out and attacking this report.

Looking at the many issues, with the Frankston Hospital redevelopment, as I mentioned, the original approved cost was $562 million. It was not published. This figure was not published in the budget papers. Can you believe it? It was not published in the budget papers because there was no budget paper 4 produced in 2020–21. There will be some ridiculous excuse around COVID or the Ukraine war or Donald Trump – I do not know; they will blame someone. But the point is that this has now gone to $1.1.2 billion. That is an increase of 99.3 per cent, or $558 million. That money could be going to services in regional Victoria and it could support our health services right across the system. It is an enormous amount of money. That is just one project that has blown out.

Of course, as we have seen, our state’s debt is climbing all the time. I just do not understand why the government does not take this seriously. I just find it incredulous that they do not understand the impost they are putting on current and future generations of Victorians with the debt that they are going to be saddled with. Yesterday the Treasurer said that being the Treasurer was fun. What an insult to every single Victorian who is really struggling with paying increasing rates, land tax bills or payroll tax bills and their rising grocery costs, energy costs, car registration and insurance – all of these things. These are big impacts on the household, yet we have a government who are frivolous. I think it is extraordinary how they just disregard what is so important.

As that debt is climbing, cost cutting is inevitably going to have to happen. That will compromise patient care and lead to poorer patient outcomes. At the start of my contribution I spoke about that. The Labor government abandoned its promise to deliver 240,000 planned surgeries last financial year, falling dismally short by 30,000. That is 30,000 Victorians who are waiting for necessary surgery. They are in pain, they cannot see properly, they are reliant on painkillers to be able to function – there are so many implications. It is just terrible what is occurring. In the six months from July to December last year the waiting list for surgery in Victoria increased by 5400 patients – 5400 Victorians were added to that waitlist. From the quarter ending 30 June it went from 57,476 Victorians on the waitlist to, in December, 62,878. That is a lot of people that are waiting for vital surgery. It is that basic care that Victorians are being denied and do not have access to. It is these cuts to the critical services that are really having an impact on all Victorians.

I have spoken about dialysis, I have spoken about the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme and I have spoken about other areas. We know that Cancer Council Victoria is having an increase in people contacting their helpline because people cannot take the time off and take their loved ones to have their cancer treatment. Again, these are basic services. They are going to have to be travelling further. The maternity services have been slashed across regional Victoria. That is putting the lives of Victorian women and their babies at risk. We know that the services that have been cut in northern Victoria have led to some terrible outcomes – shocking outcomes – and we have got a government that just does not understand or does not care. In the last few moments of this debate I want to again spell out the letters from the outgoing department secretary and the Minister for Health telling health services that basically there will be no further funding provided to their operating budgets. In August the situation was so dire that it led to a bailout – a Treasurer’s advance of $1.5 billion. That just shows the mismanagement between May and August – a couple of months – where the minister and the department secretary were saying, ‘You’ve got no more money; live within your means. You’ll be told your budgets, and you have to just comply with that.’ Those people working in the system understood what was going to happen. It meant intensive care beds and NICU beds were going to have to close, dialysis chairs were going to have to close, cancer treatments were going to have to be scaled back and a whole lot of other services were going to be cut.

The demands have not gone away since last August, and now hospitals have only just finished – or I do not even know if they have finished – signing off their statement of priorities. This is in the lead-up while they are trying to look at their targets and their funding for the next budget. I will say in closing that this is a government that is way out of its depth. We have got a Premier, a Treasurer, a minister and frankly the entire government who have got no clue about what they are doing. It is dire, and it should be taken very seriously that health services and our health system are in crisis, and under Labor it will only continue to remain that way. I urge members to support my motion.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:17): The government will oppose this motion. It is really a bit rich coming from the Liberals. Certainly they would know all about cutting critical health services. Just before I go on, it was Jeff Kennett who closed hospitals across the state and privatised even more. In my electorate Koroit, Mortlake, Murtoa and Macarthur all lost their hospitals, as did Clunes, Beeac, Birregurra and Lismore. Those local health services were lost to the Liberals’ slash-and-burn exercise. This is evidence that those opposite do not care. They are the complete opposite to caring, really. Our government and the Minister for Health have been very, very clear. We are committed to rural and regional health care, and our minister Mary-Anne Thomas is determined to strengthen rural healthcare services – and is doing so, and I will now explain.

What we are doing is creating networks that will support our hospitals and improve client care. In many cases we are backing in existing networks that are longstanding operational arrangements and systems across logical regions. I have a great example to tell here this afternoon, and that is the south-west local health service network. I met with them last year, and this is a collaborative group of healthcare services across the south-west. Over the past two decades they have been building up an impressive network of integrated services to provide high-quality care close to home and within their own community. This network of hospitals in south-west Victoria has 27 geographically dispersed campuses, which deliver care to rural and remote communities within our region. The network includes Casterton Memorial Hospital, Heywood Rural Health, Moyne Health Services, Portland District Health, South West Healthcare, Terang & Mortlake Health Service, Timboon and District Healthcare Service – where I had my first child – and Western District Health Service in Hamilton. It also includes the five Aboriginal community controlled health organisations. This network is a very sensible arrangement to what is the tyranny of distance in our region.

Established clinical pathways within the region mean that the south-west has a self-sufficiency rate of 85 per cent. This means that the south-west region meets the clinical health needs of most of its communities over the period of their lives. This is shown by the fact that 98.6 per cent of patients who seek care in the south-west are treated in the south-west.

Between them the hospitals in the network deliver 390,000 clinical consultations a year, 94,000 emergency or urgent care inpatients, 42,000 acute inpatient stays, 600 residential aged care beds and over 400 aged care packages. This is done with a workforce of 4000, including 165 specialist medical staff and a total budget of $610 million. The network delivers surgical, obstetric, midwifery and emergency care across the region.

The network has achieved some absolutely remarkable successes through collaboration. They have already developed an integrated electronic medical records system used across all of the services, with a single unique patient identifier ensuring visibility and connection of care across all agencies. So when one of my relatives is in Timboon hospital and they need to be sent to Warrnambool for more complex care, the same medical record is used. Their practitioners and health providers can see their medical record. They do not need to retell their story, and the providers do not need to ring health colleagues to understand what is actually going on for that patient. That is convenient for patients and is best practice, and it is already in place for our regional hospital network.

They are able to deliver coordinated services including integrated mental health and wellbeing services, cancer treatment, palliative care, stroke treatment and aged care. They also deliver allied health services, including continence treatments, speech pathology and smoking cessation, and they built a centralised supply model and a shared integrated linen and logistics service. I would just like to point out that $50 million from the Allan Labor government was contributed to build a state-of-the-art logistics service for all of the hospitals in south-west Victoria and a supply department as well. So it was very much a logical and sensible initiative by this network, backed in with new money from the Labor government.

They have a common medical credentialing system, so if you are accredited as a nurse at Timboon you are also accredited at Heywood. That makes sense as well. For the movement of staff around the region, there are no barriers and stops along the way.

They save money and reduce their administrative burden through shared finance and payroll systems. This network has been voluntarily in place on and off in various different ways for decades. I know that for all of my life if I have a family member at Timboon they are going to be sent to Warrnambool if they need more complex care. There is a natural connection there. It makes sense. With the announcement of the formal network by the minister those relationships and structures will now be recognised and backed in even further by this government.

So not only are we not forcing amalgamations, we are creating a health system that will enable our hospitals to do more for Victorians closer to home. Saying otherwise is really yet another attempt at fearmongering. It really is putting down our wonderful health system, which has really come up with its own solutions to a logical network environment.

There are further investments. The South West Healthcare stage 2 upgrade of the hospital is currently underway, and that is with $384 million from a Labor government – this Labor government. That is on the back of money for the cancer centre in Warrnambool, which provides cancer services to the south-west region, also contributed by the Labor government. Stage 1 of the hospital redevelopment in Warrnambool was also funded by the Labor government. Rather than, as the Liberals suggest, mismanaging our health system, we have made strategic investments. Those investments have supported the natural networks and logical systems that our community has set up for health.

I want to close by saying that I really would like those opposite to stop running down our system, running down the nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, cleaners and caterers who run our world-class health system. The significant inaccuracies and falsehoods in this motion result in fear and distress in our community, a community that knows it is getting a strong and high-standard health service. The impact of this motion and the debate from those opposite undermine community confidence in our absolutely fantastic health system. I refer to your accusations of uncertainty: this is a construct of the coalition; the uncertainty is a construct of the opposition. This has been a campaign of fearmongering, putting signs up saying ‘Save our hospitals’. We were never going to close a hospital; we were never going to force amalgamations. In fact an additional $8 billion into the health system in the last budget is evidence of our backing rural and regional communities. There is absolute logic to why we will not be supporting in any way this very, very negative motion.

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (14:27): I am pleased to be able to speak on this motion put forward by the Shadow Minister for Health, Georgie Crozier. It certainly covers many of the issues that have been raised with me as I represent Northern Victoria. It talks about the Labor government’s failure to manage Victoria’s health system, including the amalgamation of health services across Victoria which will lead to a loss of frontline jobs, services and local community voice and to centralised decision-making. One of the core responsibilities of state government is health care, and when the system shows signs that it is sick it certainly reflects a bigger problem. It reflects a state government that cannot manage money and is failing in its responsibilities to manage Victoria’s public health services. This is far from fearmongering; it is simply sharing the reality of what we are seeing in regional Victoria.

We know that ambulance ramping is an issue, which shows that there are delays getting people into emergency. We have seen that at Bendigo, we have seen it at Shepparton and we have seen it at Wodonga. We have had a code yellow at Bendigo Hospital; nurses spoke out about being under pressure and unable to cope with the demands. We have seen stage 2 of Goulburn Valley Health yet to be completed. I know Kim O’Keeffe, the local member there and my Nationals colleague, has spoken out about that issue. We know that in Wodonga a bigger hospital to meet the demands of a growing population has certainly stalled. We look at the emergency department wait times; recent statistics show that in Bendigo and Albury they are much worse than the state average. Then we have seen the broken promises of this government when it comes to hospitals. For Melton hospital there have been years of promises. In 2018 Labor vowed to build 10 community hospitals. Three have been scrapped and most others significantly delayed. At Pakenham hospital – announced in 2018 – I think a fence has been going up.

There is a lot of work that still needs to be done, but this government likes doing reviews. They like to do review after review. The like to engage consultants; they like to kick the can down the road without taking practical steps to solve problems. They outsource problem-solving through consultants when they should be focused on improving actual frontline services. That is the role of a state government, to manage priorities, and this government is doing a very poor job. We see that our state debt, our net debt, is absolutely skyrocketing – it is fast approaching $26 million in interest every single day. At the same time they like to pursue massive infrastructure projects like the Suburban Rail Loop. At this stage the Commonwealth has only given just over that $2 billion, which falls far short of what is required. When you look at some of these priorities behind the scenes, last financial year the Suburban Rail Loop Authority’s employee expenses were nearly $58 million, so the Allan Labor government’s $200 billion Suburban Rail Loop is a gravy train. It has over 100 executives earning an average of $322,000 each.

The Allan Labor government like to do big builds, they like big debt and it is causing big problems, particularly in our health sector. The state government has slashed 75 per cent of funding from the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Alliance. This alliance was allocated $7.5 million in the budget, compared to $32 million. More than 35,000 Victorians were diagnosed with cancer in 2022, and rates are much worse in regional areas. Also consider the important role of clinical support nurse educators at Bendigo Health. They work alongside students and they provide guidance and feedback to help them learn. Now these roles are being removed, placing even more pressure on nurses, who already face a very heavy workload. The government has flagged changes – creating these local health service networks that come into effect on 1 July this year – but, as the shadow minister has highlighted today, there is not a lot of time left and certainly not much clarity over what this actually means and what the impact will be. A lot of health services have been wondering what is next. But we have seen that before under this government. There is not a lot of community consultation. They like ‘consultold’ rather than ‘consult’.

Our health system is under pressure. It is not to be underestimated how important it is to have access to emergency services. I was reading an article in the Upper Yarra Star Mail on Tuesday 11 February that shared the experience of Larry Norman from Yarra Junction. Late last year he collapsed in pain, suffering an abdominal aortic aneurysm, known as an AAA, where the main blood vessel travelling through the body is close to rupturing. His wife was told there was a 5 per cent chance of survival, but I commend the health staff and the team for their work: Mr Norman did survive to tell the tale. He spent 30 days in hospital, he came out just before his 30th wedding anniversary and he certainly thanks God for his survival. Mr Norman has highlighted the importance of emergency care in the regions, and there is a great shortage in the regions. He also highlighted that the mountain-bike track – that significant investment in Warburton; there is going to be 160 kilometres of trails and just that huge boost to tourism – will also potentially contribute to some of the demand for services and support in that region.

Many residents are concerned about the lack of doctors in rural areas and concerned about urgent care. I spoke with a resident in the west who had an experience of severe burns. Attending a hospital where there is no doctor on hand to assist can be quite stressful when you are in that situation, and it certainly came through as I spoke to her about the desperate need she had to see a doctor at the time. I have spoken with many people about the importance of having GPs and medical facilities in regional Victoria. The needs are great, and it is hard to see an incredible amount of money being spent on other projects when there are areas in need of support. I know Bev McArthur has spoken about the Royal Children’s Hospital and the importance of the colorectal and pelvic reconstruction service at the Royal Children’s Hospital. It is being quietly dismantled. That is having an impact on families in my region of Northern Victoria. They are very concerned about having continued access to that support service, because that service is the first and only of its kind in Australia. Also, we have the Parliamentary Friends of People Affected by Diabetes, and they have highlighted the need for investment in early intervention care for young adults with early-onset type 2 diabetes, because there is a gap there, particularly for 21- to 40-year-olds, that age group, and if not addressed that can have a significant impact on our hospitals.

There is concern about this government’s failure to manage our health system and especially their failure to manage the state budget. I note recently it was announced that the state government has taken steps to delay the state budget until after the pending federal election. It was going to be on 6 May; now it has been delayed a further two weeks. I am sure some of the information that will come out of that will not put this government in a very good light. This motion speaks to the local health networks and their concerns. My Nationals colleague Emma Kealy has certainly highlighted the impact of an amalgamation of Grampians Health, which merged four health services. It has resulted in jobs being lost. It has had impacts on dentists in the region and on rehabilitation services. I have heard of people that had to travel a couple of hours for support services, and when you are someone with cancer that is a very difficult situation to be in. We have seen rallies in regional Victoria. I know in Mansfield there was a rally of over 1000 people who raised concerns about the funding cuts and the mergers to health services. I commend this motion to the house.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (14:36): At the outset I just want to say that we will not be supporting this motion before us today, although there are a number of concerns within the motion that we do share with the opposition, and we can certainly relate to a number of the points that have been raised by those who have contributed to the debate so far. In particular on the subject of amalgamations, I think this is something – and I have spoken about this before – where we have seen a real failure of government to communicate effectively with both health services and the broader public about what the objectives of this process are. As such, I think there has really been a missed opportunity here to deliver reforms that would strengthen the health system and improve access to health services for many Victorians.

The situation we find ourselves in, with over 70 individual health services that do not really run as a cohesive health system, at times creates challenges when coordination is required. This was something that was really brought to light during COVID, when we saw numerous examples of challenges with coordination between hospitals. That has been well aired; I will not go over that again. But even in the day-to-day running of hospitals, the lack of shared pathology systems and providers, separate radiology providers who use different IT systems and different health record systems, all of these things impact on the patients who attend – whether different hospitals are providing their care or whether they are being transferred between hospitals.

Duplication and potential limits on the ability to provide clinical services occurs, given that each hospital has to manage its own resources and they are not sharing them between each other. This fragmentation that we see is really a legacy of the Kennett era, when there was the attempted privatisation of our health services. It failed spectacularly, but we are left with a largely decentralised model of health care. The answer to that is not necessarily fully recentralising our health system. It is not a panacea for these problems of lack of coordination. It is really important that our health services have the capacity to respond to local needs and, especially in rural and regional areas, that the services continue to exist even where it may be more expensive – there is argument about whether that is the case – to provide them in those areas.

It is warranted that we have a discussion about how there can be better coordination and resource sharing between health services. This is a welcome discussion; it is necessary. It is really what the recent public discourse around amalgamations could and should have been. But instead, a failure to clearly communicate the objective of these discussions and the unfortunate timing of these discussions – where they occurred adjacent to announcements about hospital budget cuts – created a significant and understandable fear that amalgamations were being looked at as a money-saving exercise. This meant trust was lost, with many health services and the broader community fearing that their services were going to be cut. This concern was felt deepest in rural areas, where the local health service is often the backbone of a community. They not only provide the health care that is really, really important for community members – because they do not have to then travel long distances at great cost, in terms of both time and money, to access health care – they are more than that. They are more than just health service providers; they are employers. They are a key employer in a lot of small towns. They attract families to those towns who might have partners who work in other areas that are needed for the towns to remain viable, like education or child care.

What could have been a positive conversation about how we could share services to deliver more and better services to regional communities, improve coordination, improve safety and improve quality of care instead led to fear, uncertainty and a whole lot of rumours, which were really left largely unchallenged, to dominate the broader public narrative. Inevitably we saw the government retreat from their original plan. Now we have seen the announcement of local health networks in place of previous plans. Once again, this announcement should have provided an opportunity to outline a positive vision for our health system in Victoria, but to date this still has not really occurred. We still have many services and communities who fear that this plan around local health networks is going to lead to cuts, particularly given the widespread and well-known concerns about budget constraints in the health department.

If the government is motivated by a desire to save money, amalgamating or networking – or whatever you want to call it – health services is not actually the way to go about it. Evidence shows that amalgamations do not really save money at all in the short term. They might in the longer term, and that is more likely to occur with amalgamation of the large metro services rather than the smaller ones. So this is not going to be a panacea for any budget woes. In fact amalgamations or any kind of significant health system reform, certainly of this scale, require significant up-front investment to make the change work. It takes a lot of time, it takes strategic planning and it takes people to oversee and implement that change management.

There is an excellent paper that I would commend to the house that was published about the experience with the formation of Grampians Health. It makes this very clear. The amalgamation may have actually achieved many of its original objectives, so in that sense you might say it was successful, but the change management process was really poor. More time, money and oversight was needed as well as better communication, both within the health service and to the broader community. This might have actually helped to bring around greater acceptance and understanding of the changes.

The need for up-front investment in this change, particularly in the proposed local health networks, has been reinforced by a whole host of stakeholders, most recently to me by the Victorian Healthcare Association, who are calling on the government to ensure that the new local health networks are adequately resourced to undertake this change process, including with investment now – not once the changes already start, but investment now – to support work plan development. The new local health networks have the potential to generate real benefits like patient access and workforce sharing, but these will not be realised if the right investments are not made.

Effective healthcare systems inevitably cost money, and perhaps this is one of the major points of difference that we really depart from the opposition on. We believe that generally this is money well spent. We should be spending money on health care. Community health and wellbeing should be a foundational concern for governments, so if we need to spend more money on health care, that is a good thing; it is a good use of government money. However, there are methods of cost saving that are often overlooked by government. I have said this so many times, but I am going to take the opportunity again: investing in prevention, preventative health care, is the number one thing you could be doing to save money, if that is the objective. Every dollar invested in health promotion and prevention saves $14.30 in healthcare costs. It is a no-brainer; we should be doing more of this. There are things like addressing junk food advertising, smoking harm reduction campaigns and perhaps considering something like a health trigger in the planning scheme so that local communities could prevent fast-food and liquor outlets being set up in their local areas.

The next best thing after prevention and health promotion is investing in community-based primary care. After prevention, this is one of the most cost-effective interventions that you can make. It provides prevention, early intervention and holistic support, and it keeps people healthier and keeps them out of expensive hospitals. What this means for the government is ensuring that they fund our Aboriginal community controlled health organisations and our community health services properly so that they can deliver the services that they need to for their communities but also expand on this model. Rather than opening more and more shiny new hospitals, invest in these incredibly valuable resources we already have in our communities – build more of them. We need more of these. Renovate them; fix them up so they can actually be functional. That is where the best value for money is found in health care, and it will save the overall health system a lot of money. But obviously that requires a holistic view of the health system, which I imagine is something that does not often happen. It is hard to account for the impacts of some of these things, but they are the things that will make a difference.

There are other initiatives around cost saving. I know that the AMA has been out promoting the GROSS program, which stands for getting rid of stupid stuff. It has been embraced by hospitals worldwide. This focuses on really getting health services to identify areas where they could save costs themselves. It does things like reduce duplicative training models: if you work at three different hospitals and have to do some form of the same training across those three institutions, couldn’t there be some way of centralising that so your training is all standard – for example, your fire safety training or something else that is applicable across the different sites? There is clunky information transfer between clinics and hospitals that could be improved, and many other initiatives. It has been done in hospitals around Australia and around the world. It is not – (Time expired)

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:46): I am pleased to rise to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion in relation to our hospital system, a motion that seeks to critique some of the recent processes that have been underway with respect to health service administration but then also looks at the state of the healthcare system in some pretty strident terms. The government does not support the motion. I want to start by just reflecting on why health care and hospitals matter to Victoria and to Victorians – because having a world-class, highly functional healthcare system staffed by highly trained well-paid professionals delivers all Victorians the peace of mind that they need to have so that when they get sick they have got some system there to help them and to support them.

Labor has always supported universal access to public healthcare systems in Australia. We have always been a party that has supported and invested in our hospitals and our broader healthcare system. That is why we have got a public healthcare system in Australia – because of Labor – and Labor is always going to stand up for our health care and our hospital system. And in Victoria thanks to a sustained period of investment in our healthcare system, we have one of the strongest performing health systems in Australia and among some of the best in the world. I think anyone who has the misfortune of being sick knows that when they walk into a Victorian public hospital they are going to be cared for by highly trained professionals who want to give them the clinical support and broader care that they need.

We know, however, that those opposite – the Liberals – are more interested in fearmongering than they are in coming up with solutions that are going to deliver better healthcare options and better healthcare outcomes for Victorians. The Labor government is focused on figuring out ways to make our health system better. And we did that just the other day when in the other place new laws were introduced to enshrine more nurse-to-patient ratios in our healthcare system to strengthen the ratios that make sure that particularly in intensive care departments, for example, patients will receive appropriate care from highly qualified nursing staff. I am sure we will get into a very extensive debate when those bills come before this chamber, but that is just the latest example – I think it might have even been yesterday – or the next example of where Labor is investing and Labor is supporting our healthcare system.

Those opposite are just interested in talking down our healthcare system. When you take a step back from the distortions about our healthcare system performance that those opposite seek to peddle into the system, you can see that the health outcomes that Victorians are getting from our healthcare system are generally speaking world-class and nation leading. No system is perfect, and we know that. Our healthcare professionals, who work exceptionally hard, do their absolute best day in, day out to provide high-quality health care. I want to take this opportunity in this place to thank all of the healthcare professionals who work in our public hospitals in particular but in our broader healthcare system and thank them for what they do to deliver world-class health care here in Victoria. We have some outstanding statistics in terms of system performance, well ahead of the national average for cardiac arrest survivals. We are ahead of all other states in elective surgery waitlist turnover rate and the only jurisdiction, according to the report on government servicesfrom the Productivity Commission, that has treated all category 1 planned surgery patients within clinically recommended timeframes.

But we do know that despite there being good system performance here in Victoria, the system is under pressure. There is exceptional demand on our emergency departments, and that is resulting in a lot of pressure on the staff working in those departments and longer wait times. 500,000 patients presented for treatment at Victorian emergency departments between October and December last year and there was a record high in category 1 presentations. Despite the demand, the focus of our hospital system and our healthcare system, particularly our public hospitals, is on meeting this demand in a timely way, and the median time to treat in our public hospital emergency departments is now 14 minutes, which is 8 minutes faster than it was before the pandemic. All category 1 patients – category 1 patients being those assessed as being critically unwell and requiring immediate treatment – continue to be seen immediately on arrival in our emergency departments. There is record demand increasing pressure, but we have got an exceptional workforce backed by the resources that they need which is making sure that despite the increased demand those patients with the most critical need are being seen immediately upon their arrival to emergency departments.

We also know that due to what happened in the state during the pandemic there was a need to catch up for those Victorians that still needed planned surgery. The catch-up plan and the Planned Surgery Reform Blueprint invested $1.5 billion in delivering more surgeries, reducing waitlists and improving the timeliness of care. Just under 50,000 patients were admitted for planned surgery between October and December last year, and 100 per cent of the most urgent surgeries were delivered within 30 days. There is continual improvement for category 2 and 3 patients, with the median time treatment dropping four days for category 2 patients and 31 days for category 3 compared to their equivalents in the year prior. Overall the percentage of patients treated on time continues to improve, with 86 per cent of all planned surgery patients now seen on time. That is the reality of what is going on in our health system – investments from the government; a workforce doing an absolutely outstanding job, backed in by the government, facing increased and increasing demand; and a system delivering the care that the most critically unwell patients need as soon as they need it. We are doing everything we can to make sure that other patients with less acuity on presentation receive their treatment and their surgery, for example, within reasonable timeframes.

On the question about the fearmongering in relation to hospital amalgamations, the government has been absolutely clear that there will not be forced amalgamations of our hospital services. The continuation of the misinformation and fear is a disservice to the Victorian community – a disservice to the Victorian community to continue that scare campaign. I do not want to waste the time that we have to talk about how good our healthcare system is and to acknowledge the challenges that we face by continuing to give oxygen to the misinformation that is being perpetuated by those opposite. But we should always be looking at how to make our healthcare system more efficient and more effective, because what patients care about is the quality of care that they are receiving. They are not so fussed about the badge, the logo, on the top of the emergency department as they go through; they are absolutely critically focused on the quality of care that they are receiving. That is exactly why we have the sorts of performance measures that I spoke of earlier in the speech and why we have been investing and supporting our healthcare workforce the way we have – recruiting more nurses, supporting better nurse-to-patient ratios and enshrining them in law. Ensuring that Victorians have access to high-quality healthcare when they need it has been a cornerstone.

Nick McGowan interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I am going to keep saying it, Mr McGowan, because it is both important and true that in Victoria Victorians should expect access to a world-class high-quality healthcare system backed in by funding and backed in by a highly trained workforce, and under Labor that is exactly what they are getting.

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:56): What we have seen here today is an awesome exercise by a government that has clearly been there way too long, a government that has failed to heed a single, solitary message from the last two by-elections, and they were just days away, weeks away – two weeks away; my goodness. And yet here we have, waxing lyrical, time and again, one speaker on the other side after the other telling us how good we have got it. It is almost reminiscent of the days of Keating. Remember Keating? ‘It doesn’t get any better than this’ – remember that quote? That was from the Labor Party as well – in the midst of a recession. And yet here we are today in the same state, in the same country –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Say that again, Mr Batchelor? Repeat it again, Mr Batchelor? Okay. You do not want to repeat it; that is fine. It is amusing to me that those opposite, all they do is replay. They are the same old messages: if you tell people long enough they have got the world-class best medical health system in the world, that is what they will believe. The sad reality for those opposite is that Victorians have been engaged with the healthcare system for years now, and they know that, sadly, despite the best efforts of the practitioners, despite the best efforts of the nurses, despite the best efforts of all those individuals, including paramedics, who try and save lives and treat Victorians, this government has monumentally failed, absolutely failed, and for those opposite to suggest otherwise is absolutely ridiculous. They know it is ridiculous for them to use words like ‘fearmongering’. This comes from a party, do not forget – a party – who could not lie straight in bed. They could not.

A member interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: That is right. Not only did they do a Mediscare campaign, your party, Mr Batchelor – and if you want to go down the path of history I am happy to do that with you – and your brand have consistently lied to the Australian much less the Victorian public about health care. They have consistently used it as a vice, as a weapon, with which they are going to hit Victorians over the head time and again. The Labor Party do not cease to actually scare the people of Victoria into voting one way or the other, because –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: I will pick you up on that interjection, Mr Batchelor, talking about hospitals and closures. The reason that my good colleague here Ms Crozier is bringing this motion forward today is because she has every right to be concerned that those opposite are planning forced closures, forced mergers.

Members interjecting.

Nick McGOWAN: I listened to you too, Ms Ermacora, and I will come to you in a moment. I will give you just one example: 2018. Who wants to go back to 2018 in this chamber? Not many people, I am guessing. But I can see Minister Stitt is smiling. So perhaps, Minister Stitt, you and I can go back there; we can go on that path together. Back in 2018 you were here, so you will understand this: the Labor Party at the time had a press release – remember this, boys and girls? – headed ‘An emergency department Maroondah kids and their families can count on’. Has everyone gone silent? My goodness, have they what. I will repeat it: ‘An emergency department Maroondah kids and their families can count on’. They said that in 2018.

Georgie Crozier: Ten community hospitals, they said in 2018.

Nick McGOWAN: Ms Crozier, once again you are 100 per cent right: 10 community hospitals. Coming from the claptrap opposite, coming from the very people who want to decry the Liberal brand, while they themselves as a Labor brand promised 10 hospitals –

Ryan Batchelor: You shut them down. You privatised them.

Nick McGOWAN: You promised one, Mr Batchelor, right here in Maroondah, and what did you do? Tell me what you did. You did nothing. In 2018 you promised the children of Maroondah, so that is Croydon – that is further afield than Croydon – it is Ringwood, it is Warrandyte, it is Blackburn, it is Vermont, it is Forest Hill, it is Nunawading, it is Mitcham and it goes further than that. I could continue. So to all those constituents, where is your apology? Where is your apology, Mr Batchelor? You have fallen quiet all of a sudden. Minister Stitt has also fallen quiet all of a sudden. She is the mental health minister in this state. She is supposed to give a damn, and right now all she is doing is speaking to Mr Batchelor, because what they know is they ought to apologise for their craven, disgraceful tactics and for their lack of funding hospitals. Not a single cent of the $64 million they have actually identified – do not ever forget that; I do not know where that money actually went, Ms Crozier, but $64 million –

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Yes, to the Suburban Rail Loop – it is down the tunnel. It will be great when the meteor arrives, because we will have a tunnel to climb into. That is what the Labor Party plan probably is.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: If it doesn’t go down a sinkhole in the meantime. In 2018, I remind those opposite – that is what they promised the people of my district. That is what they promised, and they never, ever delivered. They did not even try. $64 million dollars blown – goodness knows where that went. But it got better; it got much better than this. I only wish I had half an hour, an hour, 3 hours, perhaps all day, because I could keep going on. Then 2022 comes along. What happened in 2022, Mr Batchelor? I ask this as he leaves the chamber. In 2022, guess what, there is another media release. We know the Labor Party is all spin and no substance. You should know this. You will learn. Stick around, whippersnapper; you will learn.

Tom McIntosh: Who are you calling a whippersnapper?

Nick McGOWAN: In this place those opposite like to talk about grasshoppers and sources and all sorts of other things. I am just using a language I hope you understand. I am just trying to make it language that you would comprehend.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: A union hack? Well, I am more generous than that. But nonetheless in 2022 this press release – this was a zinger, and I do not mean a burger from KFC – said:

The new Queen Elizabeth II –

Queen Elizabeth II, Minister Stitt. Did you have a hand in this? I hope you did not. I really hope you did not.

The new Queen Elizabeth II hospital will rebuild and refurbish the Maroondah hospital from the ground up.

From the ground up. There are two problems – well, there are so many problems I do not know where to begin, but I will begin with the obvious problem: not once did this government bother to think or consult the local people about the name. Then what did they do? They stumbled. They spectacularly stumbled before they even got out of the blocks. The starting gun had not even gone off. Had they bothered to have one modicum of respect for the people of my area or one modicum of respect for Indigenous Victorians, they might have thought they should consult on the name prior, because Maroondah is an Indigenous name. It is an Indigenous name, Minister Stitt. I know you have to leave us now – that is a real shame – but I wish you would stay to hear this out, because you will be sitting at that cabinet table. There are people in my area that have mental –

Ingrid Stitt: Stay in your lane.

Nick McGOWAN: I am in my lane well and truly, I can tell you that. But what I would like to see is funding for the Maroondah Hospital, not zero dollars, which is all you have in the forward estimates. It is an absolute disgrace. Everyone in this chamber should be absolutely appalled with themselves, particularly those at the cabinet table. I am glad that you have joined us now. We have gone from one cabinet minister to the next. Unfortunately, the Treasurer has stepped out of here as well. Member Ermacora, do not go away too, because I have picked up on some of your comments as well. You were talking about fearmongering –

Georgie Crozier: Here we go. We’ve got Enver in charge. Enver’s in charge.

Nick McGOWAN: That is exactly right. We are losing some ministers here. I go back to your Queen Elizabeth II hospital. So you single-handedly alienated and disrespected the entire Indigenous population of Victoria by overnight declaring it the Queen Elizabeth II hospital – because you never asked anyone, because you never realised Maroondah was an Indigenous word. I mean, how stupid. I do not use that word often and I apologise for that word, but how stupid can you get? How stupid. Of all the things they have ever done, I have never seen the Labor Party actually do a wrong step so fundamentally as when it came to Maroondah Hospital, and they are insisting upon it. Do you know there is an online petition? I looked at that before I came out here today. There is still an online petition. How many signatures are there? There are just 56,000. That is all. It does not matter. Who looks after the petition? That is right:

This petition was originally started by Maroondah Action and transferred to Assembly of First Peoples’ of Victoria

This is how hopeless you mob are. You could not get the name right; we have established that. Number one, you could not get the name right. Number two –

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Patient outcomes. Ms Crozier, those opposite are not interested in patient outcomes. I think we have established that.

Georgie Crozier: That terrible, terrible situation in the Maroondah emergency department, Mr McGowan.

Nick McGOWAN: You raise a very, very valid point, and before my time is up I should raise that too. Time and again, despite their best efforts, because they have been failed and let down by this government and those opposite time and again –

Jacinta Ermacora: On a point of order – your first, I think, Acting President – just for clarity, I did not take my husband’s name when I got married, and I refer to myself as ‘Ms’, not ‘Mrs’. I am offended to be called ‘Mrs’. I note that I just checked with Minister Stitt, who was also referred to that way – she is also ‘Ms’, not ‘Mrs’. I do feel little bit offended when I am called ‘Mrs’.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I would ask that members of this house do refer to people using correct terminology.

Nick McGOWAN: I refer to the media release at the time. This is from Jackson Taylor – Mr Jackson Taylor is who it is from. This is his quote from the time when he talked about the Queen Elizabeth hospital. Keep in mind, everyone here, that there is not a single cent in the forward estimates for it – not a single cent. He says:

Queen Elizabeth II –

it is not even called that, but that is what they have called it –

holds a special place in the hearts of Victorians.

Really? Well, we know that, but you have just given it no money for decades. That is fine.

A re-elected Andrews Labor Government will rebuild and expand the Maroondah Hospital before renaming it in Her Majesty’s honour.

Well, that is all good and well for Her Majesty’s honour. That is fine; I accept that at face value. But I tell you what, having not actually committed a single cent, there is a larger question at stake here and that is what I will conclude on today. There not a cent in the forward estimates going forward – not one single cent – for a so-called rebuild at Maroondah Hospital. And despite that government – that is your government, those opposite me, the Labor Party – promising in the order of $1.05 billion, we have not seen a skerrick of it, not a cent, not a little squirrel nut, nothing. We have seen nothing. My point is this: they still will not guarantee that that hospital will be rebuilt on the same site, so still hanging over the heads of all of the locals in my area is the very real prospect that they actually may have a closure of the Maroondah Hospital and it will be forced to go to Wantirna. That is completely unacceptable.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:07): I will probably speak on behalf of all of us; I am glad the last contribution ran out of time, because that was surely something. I would like to return to the motion here. I will speak against it. Rather than ranting and raving and shouting out people’s names and incorrectly shouting out people’s names and giving a running commentary on who is or is not in the chamber or is leaving the chamber, I think some simple facts might help present the chamber with who is strong on health and who Victorians trust to deliver a world-class health system. I can absolutely tell you that I am proud to be part of a party for which a fundamental value is the health system for all Victorians, whether that is our newest Victorians entering into a birthing suite or whether it is caring for our oldest Victorians in a dignified way, where they and the people caring for them are in a world-class system.

I am not sure where to go first. There are the higher figures and numbers that identify the success of the health system here in Victoria, but I might put that on hold for a minute and first come to the local infrastructure investment, because I think that is really important. We had a few comments from the other side during the debate. They talked about investment in regional Victoria, and that is something that I am absolutely delighted to stand up here and talk about. When you walk through the development for the Orbost aged care home at the hospital – $45 million – it is underway. What that means to people, to families, to the community – for locals to be able to age where their family is, where they are connected to people, where they have lived, where they know people and where they can be visited is so important. To be able to ensure that the local workforce in smaller rural towns can work in a state-of-the-art building is absolutely so important and so valuable. In Maffra a $70 million aged care home is to be delivered for that community, similar to Orbost. There are the investments that we have made in the Latrobe Regional Hospital – $217 million – and in the first stage of Wonthaggi Hospital, $115 million. These make a real difference to communities and they make a real difference to the workforce – keeping people working in our rural towns and keeping people working in the health force in our regions.

Not only have we delivered the infrastructure to ensure that our patients are being seen by a workforce in first-class facilities, we are also giving that workforce the pay and the conditions through the 28 per cent pay rise to nurses and midwives and through the ratios. We know when the coalition were last in power they went to war on the pay, the conditions and the ratios of our health workforce – of our nurses, of our ambos – because they fundamentally do not believe in lifting the economic conditions of workers. Their public policy position is to suppress the wages of workers.

It was only last week that I got to tour with the Minister for Health Infrastructure and a number of other local members from Frankston, Hastings, Carrum and Cranbourne the incredible $1.1 billion hospital at Frankston – the birthing suites, a whole floor of new mental health support. The peninsula and the south-east will benefit from this incredible health investment, and much like other investments we have seen in other places around the state, this investment is just incredible for locals.

I want to touch on a visit which was really special to my heart. For most people this will not be something they have ever heard of, but at the remote communities of Bonang and Goongerah last year I got to visit the bush nurses. In some of the halls that have been set up in particular for bushfire recovery as emergency shelter and relief places there are suites where our bush nurses can come in and, through the HoloLens – which is an incredible piece of technology; basically a pair of glasses they can put on – they can engage with specialists in Melbourne to save people making a 6-hour each-way trip and basically doing two days of travel to go and see a specialist. A specialist can now, through the eyes of a local bush nurse, observe and in some cases treat patients. In the event of snake bites or other issues someone can be supported locally by expertise out of some of the best hospitals or by some of the best experts in the world. It does not have to be Melbourne; indeed it can be anywhere in the world. The fact that we are putting this technology in these spaces and backing some of our most remote residents is really important.

I also want to touch on our ambulance service. I have been able to visit the new ambulance stations that we have put in in Foster, in Yarram, in Paynesville and in Mornington. We have got new stations in Moe and in Orbost. This is again coming back to the health infrastructure investment that is supporting our workforce who support us. If you go out to a local community and talk about who some of the most trusted workforce are – sadly for all of us here it is probably not the people in this building – it is our nurses and it is our paramedics. Local community absolutely love, value and respect the work they do. Again, that is why I am so proud that we invest in the infrastructure. We have set up the pay structures that are ensuring that they are well paid and that our nurses are recognised for the inequality in gendered pay historically. We are catching that up and ensuring that people who do so much for our quality of life at our time of most need are paid and cared for appropriately.

It would not be right of me to stand here and talk about all the investment in health infrastructure that the Labor government has made, and it would not be right of me to talk about the investment that we make in our workforce pay and the ratios and the work conditions they have, without looking at the alternative government and their history, what they have done and what they will do.

Ann-Marie Hermans: On a point of order, Acting President, I do not think that this is an opportunity for the member to be attacking the opposition. We are not in government, and so we need to keep this to the motion.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I ask the member to return to the message of the motion.

Tom McINTOSH: I will talk about a hypothetical world where there is a party that exists in this state who have ambitions to become the party of government. To think that a party who have closed hospitals. Growing up in regional Victoria, I spent a lot of time down Warrnambool way, Koroit, Mortlake. I do not know what Mrs McArthur thinks about Macarthur Hospital being closed. I played footy up at Clunes, Beeac, Birregurra, Lismore, Elmore, Eildon, Red Cliffs. The privatisation of Traralgon – to have all these hospitals closed. I have maybe once or twice mentioned the removal of services, the removal of train lines, the shutting down of schools that occurred under this lot’s watch.

Ann-Marie Hermans: On a point of order, Acting President Broad, again I would like to ask you to draw the member back to the actual motion. This is not an opportunity to attack the opposition.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Mrs Hermans, it has been a lively debate. I ask the member to continue.

Tom McINTOSH: I will stand on our history, on investment in infrastructure, on paying conditions, on ratios, in supporting the health workforce to support Victorians. I will remind Victorians to look at the history of those opposite, to look at the alternative government who want to have their hands on the levers and what they will do. We know that their economic policies are to suppress wages. They will go after the wages of our healthcare workforce. History tells us they will shut hospitals, they will privatise and they will see the health care of this state go down the toilet.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:17): I also rise to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion about our health system, which is absolutely falling apart. I commend this motion because it discusses so many of the issues that are important to Victorian people. But before I start, I also wish to thank all of our healthcare providers, our healthcare professionals, particularly our nurses, our doctors, our ambulance workers, everybody across the sector that is working tirelessly to do their very, very best under very difficult circumstances in this state to provide health care – the very best health care that they possibly can provide under the circumstances – to the Victorian people. May I say that the enormous anxiety and stress that this is causing healthcare providers because of decisions that are being made by this government are untold, and this government needs to take seriously the sorts of things that the opposition is bringing into the chamber when it talks about health care. Our job as opposition is simply that: it is here to hold the government to account. We would not be doing our job if we were not doing that, and so this motion is doing exactly that.

Let us just start by the way it opens. It condemns the Allan government for failing to manage Victoria’s health system. I cannot wait, in terms of talking about how it has failed, to see the results of the inquiry into Ambulance Victoria’s workplace culture. That is going to be a real concern, because we know a number of things. There have been I think more than 60 submissions lodged in this inquiry, and annual reports show that the agency paid out a record $108 million in WorkCover claims for the year – $20 million more than in the previous year. These are genuine concerns about a broken healthcare system under this government. We have also got the inquiry looking into things like ramping and the toll that it has taken on many Victorian lives and those many more that have been endangered. These are serious issues. They matter to Victorian people, they matter to the everyday Australian and they certainly matter to the people of the south-east, where I represent the people. I say that there are genuine stories of concern, actually heartbreaking stories, of people who have barely, narrowly got out of the situation that they are in in terms of being able to get to the hospital in time, and in some cases that has not happened. So I offer my condolences to the many families who are grieving because our health system is broken and they have lost loved ones in the process.

I want to go on to talk about the loss of frontline jobs, services and local community voice. These are all realities. To say that this is not happening is to say that you have not actually travelled out into regional Victoria and spoken with healthcare professionals. They talk about the issues of the resources with this being suddenly closed, that being closed, there not being enough for them to use in these regional hospitals. It is a major issue for Victorians and it is a major issue for our healthcare professionals, and they are finding it an incredible struggle to provide quality care to the average Victorian.

There are so many additional things I want to talk about. I can see that I am going to run out of time, but let me just talk very quickly about some of the financial results of this government. This should give you an idea of how disastrously and how badly things are really going. Monash Health covers Casey, Frankston and Dandenong – perhaps not Frankston, but it covers a lot of the south-east. They had a net loss of $321,278,000 compared to an operating profit of $23-plus million last year. That is how badly it is going. The loss is masking the fact that some of their assets were actually revalued. What on earth is that? How can you be revaluing in order to hide your figures? That is pathetic. State government operating grants have decreased from $2540 million in 2023 to $2346 million in 2024, which is a 7.7 per cent decrease. That is how badly things are going in Victoria. This – (Time expired)

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:22): I cannot help but bring to the attention of the house the frivolous and ridiculous points of order raised by Labor members about their concerns around whether they are going to be called Ms or Mrs in a very important health debate. That is how Labor treat the seriousness of the situation that Victorian health services and Victorian health practitioners and clinicians are facing – and importantly, Victorian patients. I find it absolutely extraordinary that their trivialisation of this motion was laid bare through their contributions.

We also had a bit of the government members going back in history around things that happened last century. They failed to even put into context what happened in terms of the situation Victoria was in. The Cain–Kirner years sent this state broke – well, we are here again. How things change but stay the same. I want to go back to the issues this motion is about: the cost cutting and the issues. My colleague in the other house Ms Cleeland brought up an adjournment matter around maternity services being cut:

A lack of funding support from this government has already resulted in providers like Benalla Health having to close their birthing services, and Kilmore health’s maternity ward operating on reduced hours between 6 am and 6 pm.

The hospital recently lost 30 midwives from their staff and are still dealing with a hiring freeze and a lack of resources following the Department of Health’s directive to contain costs. That is cost cutting, whether it is that maternity service or whether it is the dialysis units being cut, the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme, the lack of support for patients or the motion that is going to be debated next about the colorectal and pelvic reconstruction service at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Mrs McArthur will speak to that. I have spoken about that. I have spoken to patients and I have spoken to clinicians. As a direct result of cost cutting, that is what this government is doing. When you fail to deliver a proper and manageable budget, invariably services will have to be cut – important services that affect Victorians. That is what has happened with maternity services, patients in renal failure who require dialysis, support for patients with cancer treatments and all these vulnerable children and their parents who are seeking the support of a nation-leading service. These issues are important. They are right across the board. Ms Ermacora defended the government’s situation and having workers travel 2000 kilometres a week when they are working in linen services. This is the result when funding is reduced and services are squeezed.

Amalgamations are going to happen. Now the government is saying amalgamations are not going to happen. Mark my words, health services will fold because the funding is being squeezed time and time again. There was a reprieve last year with the $1.5 billion Treasurer’s advance, after it was highlighted by CEOs and COOs that services would be cut to meet the financial demands of the Minister for Health and the department secretary. But unless that funding is reinstated and continued, then services will close. The maternity service’s 30 midwives have gone, and that is in a small area of Northern Victoria. This is the reality of what we are speaking about.

I heard Dr Mansfield speak about elements of this, and she was agreeing with my motion. Yet it is disappointing that they are not bold enough to actually stand up and support this when they also know what is happening within our health system. Victoria’s health system is in crisis, whether it is our hospital system, whether it is our ambulance system or whether it is the morale among our wonderful clinicians that are doing tremendous work under very trying circumstances. The occupational violence is having a massive impact. I say again that this is an important motion, which has been trivialised by the government, and I would urge all non-government members to support my motion.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (15): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (20): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Anasina Gray-Barberio, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion negatived.