Wednesday, 31 August 2022

Matters of public importance

Health system

The SPEAKER (16:01): I have accepted a statement from the member for Bulleen proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house notes the Andrews Labor government has presided over a Victorian healthcare crisis and:

there are more than 87 000 people on the elective surgery waitlist, 000 delays, ambulance response time blowouts and tents being used as emergency departments around the state;

(2) despite Victoria’s health crisis, the Andrews Labor government has this financial year cut $2 billion to health funding;

(3) the Guy Liberals and Nationals will shelve Labor’s $35 billion Box Hill to Cheltenham train project and use that money to fix our healthcare system;

(4) the communities of Mildura, Melton, Sandringham, St Arnaud, Wodonga, Warragul, Rosebud, Caulfield, Shepparton, Werribee and Greater Melbourne will benefit from new or upgraded hospitals under the Liberals and Nationals;

(5) Victorians will benefit under the Liberals and Nationals with a commitment to halve the waiting list in the next 4 years, provide more mental health support in schools and a $4500 rebate for IVF patients;

(6) only the Liberals and Nationals will provide free public transport for healthcare workers and funding for education expenses for nurses; and

(7) instead of fixing the crisis, the Andrews Labor government will proceed with the east and north sections of the rail loop, costing taxpayers $200 billion for a project that has a benefit-cost ratio of 0.6, and has been criticised by economic and transport experts.

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (16:02): On behalf of the 87 000 Victorians who await elective surgery in this state, I move this motion in my name. On behalf of the Victorians who have called for an ambulance from our overworked ambulance staff that has not arrived, I move this motion. On behalf of those Victorians who have sought a bed in a hospital and been unable to get one because of the crowded conditions our hospital workers have to work through, I move this motion. All of us on this side of the chamber stand up and support this motion on behalf of those Victorians who are experiencing the failings of a health service that has been chronically mismanaged—

A member: Broken.

Mr GUY: a broken health service from a government that has not done the work over the last two years to fix it as it said it would. 87 000 Victorians await elective surgery in this state. That is 87 000 Victorians who cannot get surgery at a time they need it the most. It is 87 000 Victorians who are not looking for cosmetic surgery but are looking for surgery like knee replacements, gastric work, hip work, vital work in relation to their treatments and who just cannot be seen in a state because its health service is broken. It has not been broken by federal governments. It has not been broken by the South Australian government, by the New South Wales government, by other people, by previous governments, by councils or by business. It has been underinvested in by the state Labor government that has been here for eight years—a Premier who has been here longer than Steve Bracks, longer than Jeff Kennett and who wants to be here longer than John Cain and longer than Rupert Hamer. It is all about him. It is all about his statue. It is all about record books for him. But it is not about the Victorians who are hurting—tragically some who are dying—because our health service is not up to scratch. No amount of government spin, no amount of press releases, hard hats, hi-vis vests—no amount of this—can tell Victorians about what we have been through for the last two and half years. The world’s longest lockdowns were in Melbourne—playgrounds locked up, curfews, rings of steel, businesses lost by small business owners, kids mandated with masks, the people in the world locked down for the longest were here in Melbourne.

To come out of this with a health system in worse order than when we went into that pandemic, despite a Premier saying ‘I will fix this health system, and that’s why you’re being locked down’ and that ‘There’ll be 4000 more ICU beds waiting for you when we come out of this’—no amount of government spin will have Victorians know any different than fact, and we know the facts. We have lived it. Our children have lived it. Our parents have lived it. People like Dave Edwards in Swan Hill, who the National Party leader knows, know it. He watched his father die on the lawn of his house because an ambulance did not turn up when he needed it the most. It is not the fault of the paramedics and it is not the fault of the people who work in the system—it is the fault of a government that does not recognise we have a problem. And if you do not recognise we have got a problem, you will not fix it.

Ms Britnell: He doesn’t care.

Mr GUY: And if you do not care about the problem, you will not fix it either. For the Premier, it is all about him; it is all about getting by for the next 90 days.

Mr Wakeling: A PR problem.

Mr GUY: It is a PR problem. It is a problem with spin. It is a problem not for outcomes, not for Victorians, but for managing it for himself. And that, if anything, is what we on this side of the house, the Liberals and Nationals, find the most repulsive about this debate—that there is no empathy when we raise these matters in the chamber, that there is no sense of urgency to fix this problem and that we have people on the other side of the chamber, who frankly belong in a kindergarten, whose interjections are frankly juvenile and ridiculous and make a mockery of themselves being elected to this chamber. They make a mockery of themselves.

Ms Settle interjected.

Mr GUY: I do not have the time or the crayons to explain it to the honourable member over there, because at this point in time this is a serious problem. That is why, with $2 billion in health cuts, it is time to fix the problem. On this side of the chamber we intend to fix the health system—it is our priority. We will build new hospitals in Mildura, in Wodonga, in Warragul and in Melton and a royal children’s hospital in Werribee to service the growing western suburbs, where there are more babies being born—in Werribee, Wyndham and Melton—than most other places in Australia. We will upgrade hospitals like Caulfield, St Arnaud, Shepparton, Sandringham and Rosebud, because it is the right thing to do. This will halve our hospital waiting lists in our first term—in four years. The people in Albury and Wodonga have been waiting for a new hospital for five years. They do not want a GP clinic, they want a hospital. How many times does the member for Benambra need to come into this chamber and say to the Premier of this state, ‘When are you going to build us a hospital?’—because this is what the people of the border desire, and this is what they deserve. Four years ago the Labor government—I am glad the member for Melton is here—promised to build the Melton hospital. Four years it took them to purchase a block of land—four years. It is one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia and the government moved at one of the slowest paces in Australia to build a brand new hospital. We will build it. We have got the money, and we will build it. We will build a new hospital in Warragul because it is needed, because the people in West Gippsland deserve it.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Melton! Member for Buninyong!

Mr GUY: The people of West Gippsland deserve it, the people of West Gippsland need it, because Warragul-Drouin as a conurbation is growing faster than anywhere else in Gippsland and will soon be the largest population centre to the east of Melbourne. Its hospital is old, it needs to be repaired, and that is why we will do it.

We will build an infectious diseases centre in the centre of Melbourne so that should we have another event, we will make sure that those who are sick are quarantined and those who are healthy are not—a sensible, straightforward decision.

We will build training centres at a lot of these hospitals—Mildura, a new one in Shepparton, Wodonga, Melton as well, and Warragul—because where nurses and physicians train is where they will stay and work. That is how we decentralise population, regionalise it. Ask the member for South-West Coast, who was a nurse who worked in these facilities for the vast majority of her career.

Ms Britnell: Three decades.

Mr GUY: Three decades of work in the health sector. That is what you do. Not only do you regionalise and decentralise health services and population, it is about a plan, a vision, for the whole state. It is so important that Victorians know in this election and with this matter of public importance today that this side of the house believes health and fixing our health crisis is the most important thing facing our state today.

We will reprioritise every cent available for the Cheltenham to Box Hill rail tunnel; we are going to put it all into fixing our health system. We make no apology about this—no apology. I say to the member for Bendigo East, who talks about jobs, ‘Well, you don’t build hospitals out of Lego’. They are built with bricks and mortar and a lot in between. It takes thousands of jobs to build and upgrade 11 hospitals, and the ongoing jobs of the thousands who will be needed to work in them, as the member for Warrandyte says, will be another huge boost to our state—a jobs boost, a confidence boost, a health boost—and something that benefits every single Victorian, not just the pet project of one man that was thought up on a Cathay Pacific flight, business class, to Hong Kong as what he might like to leave as a legacy. Should he get a statue? No.

This is a vision to fix our health system for the whole state. It is that simple. What is more important than saving Victorians’ lives? Nothing. And that is why in a time when we have got a health crisis, which is now, it is time we invested in our health system. Who knows about the Box Hill to Cheltenham rail loop? I mean, is it $35 billion? Is it $50 billion? Is it $125 billion? Is it $200 billion? Is it one stage, two stages, three stages? I mean, we have been told in the last two weeks that it is going to go to the airport. It was going to go to Werribee originally. Now it is going to go to Box Hill. Now it is apparently going to go to Monash University and something is in between. It has got a different style of train to the current network; they are smaller. It has got a different track gauge to the rest of the network; it is standard gauge. It has got a different voltage to the rest of the network. I mean, what is this, seriously? We could have all that uncertainty under the Labor government, or we could take every cent from building that uncertainty and put all those jobs and all that money into fixing what is the most important priority for every Victorian, our health service.

When we fix the health service, when we put money—billions of dollars—into the health sector, every single cent that we can, it will mean we can build the hospitals we need to build. It means we can add 2000 mental health professionals to the system. It means we can add thousands of doctors and nurses to run our health system. It means we can halve surgery waiting lists in our first four years. It means we can provide free public transport to nurses and other health professionals to reward them and thank them for the job they have been doing. It means we can honour our promises—unlike that for the Geelong women’s and children’s hospital, which has never been built, promised by the government four years ago; unlike the Melton hospital, promised by Labor four years ago but never delivered; and those 10 regional hospital upgrades and those around the city that were promised but not delivered four years on. Remember, we were going to come out of this better than we were when we went in. The ICU beds that were promised—4000 of them—all promised, not delivered. Is it any wonder that there is so much uncertainty in the system when we have had four health ministers in four years? We have had the biggest crisis in the state since the war—COVID—and the people managing it, four health ministers in four years.

Ms Britnell: ‘I will prepare the health system’, huh?

Mr GUY: ‘I will prepare the health system’, the government said, as the member for South-West Coast says. ‘I will make sure the health system is in better condition when we come out of it’, said the Premier. ‘I will make sure that no Victorian’s health will be worse off’, said the Premier. It is. ‘I will make sure that country Victoria has the best health in Australia’—women are having babies on the side of the road near Portland because the system is not working. We on this side of the house are committed to fixing the health system. We on this side of the house have a plan to do so, have the money to do so and have the ability, the know-how, the desire and the absolute commitment to do so.

On the other side of the house you have got all of that for a railway line. Railway lines are nice to have. Believe me, my dad loves trains. I know lots about them. But they are a nice-to-have, they are not a priority in the middle of a health crisis. When you have got a health crisis, the issue to fix is clear. Keep Victorians safe. Make sure that women have got places to safely give birth, not by the side of the road. When you call for an ambulance, one arrives, it picks you up and when it gets to hospital there is a bed waiting for you and they do not have to triage you and stick you in a tent. It is a very clear choice at this election: a government that is committed to an ego project of a Premier who has gone mad with his own self-aggrandisement or fixing the health system once and for all with a large amount of money to get on with the job to build the infrastructure that is required from Mildura to Wodonga to Warragul to Warrnambool and everything in between.

We on this side of the house believe this is the biggest crisis our state is facing. It has got to be dealt with straight up, and you cannot do both. This complete rubbish that you can somehow run up a debt like Cuba or Portugal and do everything—it is absolute rubbish. You cannot do both, and on this side of the house we are committing to doing one thing properly: fixing the health system once and for all. That is what we believe, and I have no doubt that is what Victorians want and will invest in in November.

Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (16:17): What an extraordinary contribution and perhaps audition from the Leader of the Opposition, who seems to have forgotten that it was he and many of his colleagues over that side of the house who sat around the cabinet table and delivered cuts, chaos and closures right through the healthcare system when they had the chance.

Ms Britnell interjected.

The SPEAKER: The member for South-West Coast is warned.

Mr J BULL: It is like groundhog day here at Spring Street, and we have got Bill Murray over the other side, the Leader of the Opposition, and his fast-diminishing rabble of loyal followers, who have proven—

Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Speaker, I think it is very clear that in regard to the member for Sunbury’s contribution, referring to members of this house by anything other than their correct title is unparliamentary and against the standing orders, and I ask you to bring him back.

The SPEAKER: It is indeed against the standing orders. I ask members to refer to members by their correct title.

Mr J BULL: Thank you, Speaker. It will come as no surprise to you, Speaker, but a surprise to those opposite that good governments should not be one-trick ponies. Good governments, like this one, invest in a range of portfolio areas that continue to support the needs of Victorians right across the state to make this state a better state, a fairer state and a stronger state. We are of course repairing the damage done by the global pandemic, and we are building the Suburban Rail Loop. We will invest in transport infrastructure; emergency services; training and skills; higher education; agriculture; economic development; trade; planning; child protection and family services; disability, ageing and carers; police; crime prevention; racing; business precincts; public transport; roads and road safety; energy; environment and climate action; tourism, sport and major events; creative industries; and local government—a whole range of portfolio areas that this government will continue to invest in each and every time we have the opportunity to be on this side of the house. We are not a one-trick pony. This is a government that will continue to invest in all of our areas right across the state because that is what you must do, and that is what we will continue to do. This is a government with a significant and large-scale reform agenda.

It is about having opportunities to provide free TAFE, free kinder, free education. The Leader of the Opposition spoke about ‘no plan’ to deal with many of the challenges that have been faced within the healthcare system and I point to a $12 billion plan, a significant plan that will deliver an extraordinary amount of support to our healthcare system, a system that we know has been under extraordinary pressure each and every day since COVID arrived on our shores in January 2020.

Indeed the healthcare system has for a very long period of time been a system in which this government has—whether it is through the budget cycle, whether it is through local commitments and announcements or whether it is through working with our healthcare workforce—worked with our healthcare workforce at each and every opportunity we have had the time to do so. The global pandemic has placed extraordinary pressure on our healthcare system. What the Leader of the Opposition has done in his contribution is simply ignore that $12 billion and ignore every initiative and announcement that has been made by this government.

We take the opportunity this afternoon to thank and acknowledge our healthcare workers. We value our healthcare workers, and we thank them for the extraordinary work they have been able to do and acknowledge that these efforts are going to need to continue as we continue to deal with COVID. It is those opposite that have never been short of criticism. They never hesitate to attack our hardworking healthcare workers. There is no policy and no ideas. The $12 billion plan is about training and hiring thousands more workers to support our paramedics, to build new and upgraded hospitals, to expand emergency departments and to boost surgical capacity.

There are only 10 minutes to go in this contribution, but there is a significant amount of investment: training and hiring up to 7000 healthcare workers, 5000 of those being nurses; more paramedics; more support for paramedics; and increased capacity for 000 call takers. It is an unprecedented package around recruiting, training and upskilling our healthcare workforce, helping to relieve pressure on the system. There is $2.3 billion to upgrade and build new hospitals, $236 million to double emergency department capacity at Casey and Werribee, $1.5 billion to invest in the new Footscray Hospital, $250 million for the Monash Children’s Hospital that was opened in 2017 and $200 million for the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital that was opened in 2019 to offer local women and families in Melbourne’s west world-class maternity and paediatric services. None of these investments have been made possible by anyone over on that side of the house. It is the Andrews Labor government that, each and every time we have the opportunity, will continue to invest in all of these incredible projects.

Mr Edbrooke: $1.1 billion for Frankston!

Mr J BULL: $1.1 billion, the member for Frankston, to expand the Frankston Hospital—world-class health care for local families and to create hundreds of jobs in Melbourne’s south-east. There is Ballarat Base Hospital—local families getting the best care closer to home—and nearly $230 million for Goulburn Valley Health and $270 million for the Latrobe Regional Hospital.

It is incredible how when tangible, practical projects—real investments—go to the exact points that the Leader of the Opposition in his very flamboyant contribution for the cameras was making, they just do not want to hear it. They do not want to hear about real investments. It is extraordinary. It is absolutely extraordinary. In addition to that there is funding of over $1 billion for small local projects, funding grants to healthcare services and agencies in the last four years representing more than 2000 small locally delivered projects. This is a significant investment in health infrastructure, an unprecedented investment.

Those on the other side want to talk about workforce. Let us talk about workforce and our landmark $270 million nursing and midwifery package that this government has just announced: 17 000 nurses and midwives trained and recruited, an initiative that despite some of the criticism from those opposite is something that is going to go to the exact challenge that our healthcare workforce is facing. Again, they are not wanting to hear it—‘Ignore it, put the politics above the patient and everyone will just believe it’. Well, I do not think Victorians for one second believe that narrative. I think they believe in real investment. I think they understand the challenges that COVID-19 has presented and the investment of this government—all of the members on this side of the house—for our incredible healthcare workforce, who we will support every single day. We will be with them every single day.

It is a very, very long list, but just recently the leader of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said there are nearly 100 000 nurses. Imagine if those opposite had been in charge during the pandemic. Imagine for just a second if those opposite were in charge through those times. They could not make a policy decision. They could not work out whether they were for masks, they were against masks or they were hunting bats. I do not know what their policy position was. It was extraordinary. That is why this government will continue to work with our healthcare workforce to make sure that we are investing in both training and recruiting the health service workforce to make sure we are there at each and every opportunity.

I want to talk about Sunday’s announcement. We know that ensuring the delivery of free university for domestic nursing students who start their studies in the next two years is a significant and important initiative for every single member on this side of the house. It was announced by the Premier on Sunday and announced by the Minister for Health. This is something that is incredibly important to attract people back into the workforce and to be able to repair the damage that has been done not by anyone on this side of the house but by the global pandemic. This is a significant and important announcement. What we will continue to do is make sure we are investing at each and every opportunity in the workforce and in the health infrastructure within local communities.

Speaker, as I am sure you know, being a regional member, finding opportunities for this government to invest in rural and regional Victoria, in the suburbs and in the city, where we are right now, is something that this government will continue to do, working with local healthcare workers and working with local healthcare providers to understand many of those issues that we are addressing within this significant investment.

We have been ensuring that since 2014 we have invested record amounts in our health workforce. We have seen continued workforce growth within that public system. There are nearly 4000 more doctors, a 44 per cent increase; nearly 10 000 more nurses, an increase of 27 per cent; and nearly 2000 more paramedics, a 56 per cent increase. And it is lucky that these investments were made. It is important that these investments were made, because can you imagine if COVID arrived on our shores with us not having had that investment? If we had continued to languish and continued to deliver the cuts and chaos and closures that were delivered by those opposite, can you imagine the scenarios we would have faced—hundreds of thousands of cases, hundreds of thousands of lives lost. But this government ensured that we took those hard decisions. None of those decisions were easy. The Premier stood up for over 100 days at those press conferences to make sure that Victorians knew that it was this government, the Andrews Labor government, that would continue to work with local communities to ensure that those within local communities and their families were safe. We will continue to do that, and we will continue to invest.

This is a government that is proud of our healthcare workers in this state. This is a government that will deliver a comprehensive repair plan of more than $12 billion to ensure that the healthcare system, which was absolutely smashed by the global pandemic, will be rebuilt. We are continuing to make those investments that we were making prior to COVID, and we will continue to ensure that we are investing each and every time we have the opportunity. What we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite is—always—politics over patients. We are a team that will continue to make these investments.

I want to touch on, in the couple of minutes that I have got remaining, the Suburban Rail Loop and the notion from those opposite that you can only do one thing. At the start of my contribution I spoke about the incredible investment right through our portfolio areas and our ensuring that we are delivering a pipeline of projects, whether it is the Big Build, whether it is the North East Link, the Suburban Rail Loop, the West Gate Tunnel or the 65 level crossing removals that we have delivered—soon to be 66 with Sunbury. We are investing in those services, whether it is in sports or whether it is in education and the Education State by upgrading new schools right across the state.

Those opposite had four years. There was not one project within my electorate—absolute crickets; open the cupboard, nothing there. Under this government there has been $70 million for local schools. But apparently you can only do one thing. If we were standing here and making no acknowledgement that there is stress and pressure on the healthcare workforce, then maybe that argument would stick—maybe. But we have acknowledged the problem, we have invested $12 billion to fix the problem, we are working hard with the healthcare workforce and we will continue to invest right across the state.

Move around your local communities over the next two months and talk to your local communities about free TAFE—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: The member for Warrandyte is warned.

Mr J BULL: about the power saving bonus, about the sick pay guarantee, about our record investment in rail and road and schools. That is what our community wants to hear about. They want to continue to hear about our plans, and with just over two months to go this government will outline our plans for the next four years of a continued Andrews Labor government.

The Suburban Rail Loop is a transformative project. It is a transformative project that somewhere along the journey the Leader of the Opposition has failed to remember is a project that Victorians in comprehensive and overwhelming numbers voted for—‘But that doesn’t matter. We’ll put that to the side and we’ll concentrate on politics over patients’.

We as a government are proud of our record of our investment in health, of our investment in transport, of our investment in education. At each and every opportunity we will continue to be bold, we will continue to be creative and we will continue to be dynamic and innovative and to work with Victorians to ensure that the challenges we face will be met head-on. And we will continue to invest in our incredible healthcare workforce, who each and every day, particularly through the pandemic, have been smashed. This government will stand with them each and every day.

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (16:32): I rise to support the member for Bulleen, the Leader of the Opposition, in his matter of public importance today. I do this on behalf of all Victorians who have been failed by the Andrews government and their lack of investment in the health system. There have not been enough resources put into the health system here in Victoria. It is not about the dedicated staff at all levels who have done everything they can to make sure Victorians have a good health service. It is actually a failure of government that there is not enough of those resources to support them. It is a failure of government that there is not the infrastructure for them to work in to do that.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, in the contribution of the member for Sunbury that would give anyone in Victoria the confidence that if they ring 000, they will actually get someone to answer the call. There is nothing the member for Sunbury said that gave any confidence of that. If that call was answered, there is nothing in the contribution that would give them confidence that an ambulance would turn up in a reasonable time, and we have heard example after example after example in this place during question time of people who have died or people who have got sicker waiting for an ambulance. David Edwards’s father is a classic example of that. David and his family come from Swan Hill. There is nothing the member for Sunbury said that would actually give anyone any confidence that a repeat of what happened to the Edwards family would not happen again here in Victoria. There was nothing in the contribution that would give people confidence that when they get to a hospital emergency department they will not be put in a tent to wait for hours—put in a tent. The comment that came from a paramedic in Victoria—and it is a pity the member for Melton has left the chamber—was that it is like Guantánamo Bay. A paramedic saying that—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members who are not in their allocated seats and who are yelling across the chamber are being disorderly.

Mr WALSH: There is nothing that would give confidence that it is not going to happen again. Tents in front of an emergency department to house patients is not the way to treat patients, and to have the Minister for Health say that is the appropriate level of care shows that the Minister for Health does not understand what an appropriate level of care is, and I think the Minister for Health is failing Victorians on that. When it comes to the Minister for Health, I will not be silenced by her email saying I cannot talk about issues in this Parliament unless I get consent, and I am sure everyone that sits on this side of the chamber found that email from the Minister for Health absolutely offensive. Why should the Minister for Health say I cannot raise something on the Edwards family’s behalf in this chamber? There was something yesterday I raised about the woman that waited 6 hours to get an ambulance after she had had a fall and fractured her hip. To say that I cannot raise that in this chamber is an absolute impost on my rights as a member of Parliament. I think you, as Speaker, should investigate that because it is trying to silence members of Parliament who are raising issues in this place.

A member interjected.

Mr WALSH: It is intimidation. What is even worse: they cannot even spell. The people that sent the email cannot spell. To think that the Minister for Health, ‘Mary-Anne Thomas’, would be spelled with two Rs—

Mr Riordan interjected.

The SPEAKER: Member for Polwarth, you are not in your allocated seat.

Mr WALSH: just defies logic to me. I will not be silenced.

We have a Premier who has presided over the health system here in Victoria effectively for 12 of the last 16 years: four years as the Minister for Health and eight years as the Premier but effectively also Minister for Health, because we have been through that many ministers for health. As soon as they do not do what the Premier wants, they are put in the freezer; they are frozen out. So the Premier actually has ultimate responsibility for everything that has gone wrong in the health system here in Victoria. The fact that there are 87 000 people on the elective surgery waiting list—that is an absolute disgrace. People are waiting in pain for literally years to get the surgery they need. We have heard the reports about prescription medication addiction. People are waiting on painkillers for years to get the surgery they need. That is leading to other poor health outcomes here in Victoria.

The people in November have a very, very clear choice. Do they want a train line from Cheltenham to Box Hill that is going to cost $36 billion, maybe $50 billion, maybe $80 billion, or do they want the health system fixed in Victoria? That is a very, very clear choice.

Mr R Smith interjected.

Mr WALSH: As the member for Warrandyte said, there is effectively no choice: a something train line in 15 years time; or the people of Mildura with a new hospital, the people of Wodonga with a new hospital, the people at St Arnaud with an upgraded hospital—the list goes on, and there will be more to add to that—and a workforce plan that will make sure that there are actually staff to staff those hospitals to make sure the services that need to be delivered will be delivered.

Speaker, you, as one of the members in Bendigo, would understand how important the new hospital in Bendigo has been to the health services of Bendigo and the wider region. That is the sort of health service that we need in the other regional cities around Victoria. That is the health service that we need in the suburbs, like our commitment to Werribee. That is the sort of health infrastructure and service that we need right around Victoria. That is not what we are getting under the Andrews government. The health services, and particularly regional health services, have been short-changed under the Andrews government.

I get calls from people who are just worn out trying to do what they need to do because there are not enough resources. When it comes to the $3000 bonus for the public sector health service workers, a lot of them actually do not qualify for that money. There are a whole range of doctors in Echuca who are on contract. One of them contacted me who has worked 29 days straight. She is absolutely exhausted from delivering the services that she has delivered to her community and does not qualify for that because she is not an employee of the hospital, she is a contractor. That is just so wrong. That bonus should be for everyone that has worked really, really hard to deliver the services in the community.

That is why the commitment that we have given to providing free public transport for health workers covers both the private and the public sectors. We know that if you are going to have a viable health service here in Victoria, there has to be a public sector that is well funded by the government and there has to be a private sector that is looked after as well. It is not the Premier with his ideology saying, ‘The private sector doesn’t matter’. They both matter if we are going to have the services we need here in Victoria, because it is funding the private sector to help deliver the surgeries that are needed that is going to help halve the waiting list over the first four years of our term in government.

No-one on the other side of the house is prepared to acknowledge that in this year’s budget there is a $2 billion cut to the health budget. With all the praising self-praise—and self-praise is no praise—for how great the Andrews government are on the health system, they actually cut $2 billion out of the health system in the May budget. It is there in black and white. If you go to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report, I think there is actually a red arrow that points to it. I wonder who put that red arrow there?

With the mess that the health system is in, what people are saying to me and what people in my electorate are saying to me is that if the Premier wants to stay in power to get his statue in front of 1 Treasury Place, let us take up a collection, let us buy him the statue. Let us tell him he can have the statue now if he would just go away and let someone else fix the health system. If the Premier is so committed to running again, to trying to govern again, to get a statue in front of 1 Treasury Place, the people of Victoria and the people in my electorate will take up a collection. They will pay for it to happen so we can actually get a change of government here in Victoria.

As the Leader of the Opposition has continually said—and I am in absolute heated agreement—the person that got us into this mess is not the person to get us out. The government that got us into this mess is not the government to get us out. That is why in November Victorians will have a very, very clear choice: a vote for Daniel Andrews and a vote for Labor is a vote for more of the same—a vote for surgery waiting lists to stay at record highs, a vote for the fact that you will not get your 000 call answered, a vote for the fact that you will not get an ambulance when you call one in the time that you need it and a vote for the fact that you will wait in a tent in front of the emergency department to get the service that you need. That is what will happen if people vote for Daniel Andrews at this election. A vote for Matthew Guy and the Liberal-Nationals—

The SPEAKER: Order! Please call members by their correct titles.

Mr WALSH: A vote for the member for Bulleen and a vote for a Liberal-Nationals government will see the money taken out of the Suburban Rail Loop and invested in the health system—something that Victorians desperately need in this state.

Ms WARD (Eltham) (16:42): To get started on this debate, I find it fascinating that those opposite think it is a good idea to fundraise to remove the Premier. I ask them: why did they have Liberal candidates at a local festival handing out chocolate bars and seeking donations for the Liberal Party’s election? That is pretty bizarre. Chocolate bars—incredibly bizarre.

In getting started on contributing to this debate, I would firstly like to thank all of those health workers who have done such an incredible job over the last three years in what have been astonishingly difficult and unprecedented circumstances. Nobody who enrolled to study nursing, nobody who became a doctor, nobody who became an orderly and nobody who works within a hospital, even hospital administration, would have thought that they would have to work not just as hard as they have but also with the stresses that they have had. And I am sorry that they have been used as a political football by those opposite. With the stresses that these workers are under, to then have it turn into a political game is ridiculous and hurtful and wrong.

I also extend my gratitude to those who have worked incredibly hard to keep our public transport systems going. These people have done incredible work keeping our PT systems clean—have been cleaning buses, cleaning trains, cleaning trams—and steering them and helping people on transport and keeping them safe. They have all done incredible work. I know that on this side of the house we are very grateful for that work and have supported them. And we have not undermined their work, just as we have not undermined the work of healthcare workers.

We have been busy. We have been very busy. We have been hiring thousands of health workers and are now providing scholarships for nurses, supporting paramedics, building new and upgraded hospitals, expanding our emergency departments and boosting surgical capacity. We have brought in the $12 billion pandemic repair plan. For those opposite, their support of healthcare and health workers is, frankly, too little too late, because at every stage they have undermined the health message. We see this happening even now, where they still refuse to wear masks in this chamber. We have supported our state and our workforce every step of the way. And what does this look like? It looks like 7000 healthcare workers, which includes an extra 5000 nurses. It includes more paramedics, more people taking the 000 calls and more people helping with the logistics. It includes $2.3 billion to upgrade new hospitals, including the Werribee hospital. Those opposite are saying that they want to build a new Werribee hospital. We are already working on the Werribee hospital. There is also $1.5 billion to improve surgical capacity.

I note that those opposite want to stop or they want to pause—it is really not quite clear what they want to do with it—the Suburban Rail Loop. I am not sure whether it is just stopping the whole project and moving on to something else or whether it is going to be doing some of it but not all of it—digging some of the holes, filling them in but then not doing anything else. Do they want our city to stay in gridlock for decades and waste the money that has already been invested? It has already started—this project is already underway—but they want to stop doing it.

They have spoken about investing in a new hospital for Mildura. Well, this is fascinating. Why would the community believe them when they refused to hand over the then private Mildura hospital back to the public sector? They did not want to do that.

Mr Fregon interjected.

Ms WARD: Absolutely, member for Mount Waverley—socialist! It was socialist taking over a private hospital because it was not working. Why would the community believe that they would actually have the residents of Mildura’s best interests at heart?

The Leader of the Opposition has accepted that this is the biggest health crisis since World War II, yet at every step of the way they have undermined the health message, they have tried to confuse the health message and they have made it harder for people in the community to know what to do and how to keep themselves safe. They want to give nurses free public transport, but they do not want to build any public transport. They do not want to help nurses actually get around to major hospitals like Box Hill and like the Monash Health precinct. The other thing is, in talking about free transport for health workers, I do not know how many health workers those opposite know who work night shift, who finish at 7.00 am after working 12 hours on their feet, and whether they have asked those health workers whether they want to get onto a train or a tram or a bus at peak hour to get home, particularly women in the health sector, who often on the way home pick up bread or pick up milk. They are going home, they are sorting out school lunches and they are dropping kids at school. PT is not actually going to work for those people, particularly women; it is not. And getting the train at 7.00 pm, or the bus or tram, also may not work for those women when they are starting work.

Members interjecting.

Ms WARD: Those opposite might think it is hilarious that working women have got to work hard to get around and that they are trying to juggle many things. That is sad. However, health workers have been wearing masks, and they are being careful. They are doing everything they can to protect themselves, so we really need to show our appreciation for the work that health workers have done with something substantial which actually helps them buy that bread and which helps them buy that milk. That is why we have put in the winter retention and surge payment, which is $3000 and will mean all staff employed in public health services and Ambulance Victoria between 1 July and 30 September will be eligible for payments of up to $3000 to support them as they support us through the busiest winter ever.

One of the biggest challenges, which those of us on this side know, is our GP shortage and the fact that nobody is bulk-billing and how much it costs to go to the doctor. This is one of the reasons we have so much pressure on our emergency services, and this is where the priority primary care centres come in. The Premier of New South Wales has said that in Victoria he is sitting with a Premier who wants to get things done and look after his people. That is exactly what we are seeing this government do, and it is exactly what we are seeing this Premier do. This is why we have invested, since 2014, $11 billion in health infrastructure. We are not standing in paddocks like the Liberals, opposing community hospitals. I do not know how the Leader of the Opposition thinks anyone will believe they will invest substantial funding into health care when their candidates do not want community hospitals to be built and in fact campaign against them.

Let us look at the Suburban Rail Loop. There is no credibility from those opposite when it comes to investing in health care, and clearly there is no credibility when it comes to investing in public transport. A project like SRL East will benefit my community, just as it will benefit your community, member for Mount Waverley, and just as it will benefit the member for Box Hill. I know his community love this project and will be voting for this project because it matters to them. It will help them get around.

For my community, we can get the bus to Box Hill and get the train to Monash in about 10 minutes. That is a huge game changer when it takes so long for us to go down Warrigal Road or whichever way you want to go down to get to the Monash. It takes forever. This is a serious game changer and will get so many cars, so much traffic, off our roads. So we are investing $11.8 billion in building SRL east, with the remainder coming from the commonwealth and the private sector. I want to know how the opposition plan on spending $35 billion when there is not actually $35 billion of state government money; it is $11.8 billion. How do their sums add up? I am not sure that they do. Have they told the feds that they might actually want to change the funding that the federal government has allocated to us for the SRL? Have they had that conversation around ‘Yeah-nah, sorry? We’re actually going to spend it over here, not there’? Have they had that conversation, and has the federal government agreed to that? I suspect not. So maybe it is not really $35 billion.

There are 25 kilometres of track that will be built for SRL east. How can those opposite not want to do this? It is an incredible investment in our community, and it will change things, so how is it that there is a Shadow Minister for Transport Infrastructure who seems not to support infrastructure actually being built in this state? Astonishingly, those opposite are basing their campaign on how much it will cost to build, maintain and operate the SRL between now and 2085. I do not know about you, Speaker, but I will be 116 then, so I am really not sure how they can talk about a $200 billion blowout based on figures going to 2085. This is what their whole narrative of a cost blowout is based on—rubbery figures, absolutely rubbery figures. The Parliamentary Budget Office has endorsed the government’s business and investment case for SRL east and has arrived at the same cost estimates as the government’s business case sets out.

Suburban Rail Loop east and north will support up to 24 000 jobs—thousands of jobs for SRL east alone, 8000, and they will be in your community, member for Mount Waverley. They will be in your community, member for Box Hill. Your people want this project, and they will be voting for this project. There are so many different jobs that will be created. It is not just construction. There is admin, there are logistics, there are a huge number of jobs that will come from this project that will benefit our state. The trains that are built in regional Victoria will benefit this state. (Time expired)

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (16:52): I rise to speak on the matter of public importance. This government, the Andrews Labor government, has clearly got its priorities all wrong to be prioritising a Box Hill to Cheltenham rail project when our health system is clearly in meltdown, when people cannot get an ambulance, when people cannot get a bed in hospital, when people cannot be seen by a doctor or a health professional when they need to. This here in the state of Victoria—I am in shock to this minute that this is where we have come to. And now I am hearing that the government, who came up with an idea for a $50 billion rail project from Box Hill to Cheltenham, has now actually been shown by the Parliamentary Budget Office that this is not a $50 billion project. No. For only two-thirds of it it looks to be in excess of $200 billion. That is in the words of the independent Parliamentary Budget Office. This is a project that the government—Daniel Andrews, I would actually suspect—

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms BRITNELL: Sorry, Speaker; the Premier—actually made up on the back of an envelope, because even their own organisation, Labor’s Infrastructure Australia, did not cost this and have actually said now that they want to look at projects with merits and take the politics out. This is a project that never went through that process. Whilst we have our health system collapsing, we the Liberal-Nationals will take the money from that project, which we will shelve, and put it into our health system, because that is the priority of Victorians. This is a state where the Premier said as COVID began, ‘I will prepare the health system’. He said that and asked every Victorian to stay at home whilst he did that. Victorians did their bit. Did the Premier and Labor do theirs? I do not think so.

This was a first-class health system in Victoria. It was one that I worked in for a very long time, and I was very proud of it, but it is now broken. The system is broken, but what we do have is first-class people, first-class professionals. Be they nurses, be they doctors, be they personal care attendants, ambulance officers, kitchen staff, cleaners in the hospitals or in the clinics out of the hospitals, the health professionals have been busting their guts. They are first class, but the system that was first class has broken. It is really telling, and it is trying every single one of them. The nurses clearly talk to me a lot, because most of my friends are nurses, of the burnout and the pain, and they have suffering in their voices. When they speak to me—often actually debriefing—they want thanks through actions not words. They hear in this place the thankyous and that they are heroes. They say, ‘We don’t want that. We need the resources we were told we were going to get’.

Where did the 4000 ICU beds go? They were promised by the Premier. There were 10 hospitals promised in 2018 by this government prior to the last election as election promises. Only one has had work started on it. We have got the Maryborough hospital that was supposed to be completed by this government in the first term. That has not even had the plans completed. What does that tell me? It tells me that South West Healthcare, which is supposed to be completed by 2026, is at real risk of not being completed on time. This is a hospital that should have been announced five, six or seven years ago. It was announced in 2020, but those hospitals from 2018 have not actually been started, except for one, so I am very concerned for the staff at South West Healthcare, those fantastic nurses and doctors working in extraordinary conditions in A and E—accident and emergency. I am worried because I am already hearing that people are getting treated in the corridor, that children presenting with lacerations cannot get sutures and that an elderly woman, an 83-year-old, sat on a trolley in excess of 20 hours. This is not the staff’s doing. They are busting their guts. The system that we were all so proud of is absolutely broken.

Announcing free university for the next two years is a great announcement that we have matched, but it is three months before an election. Isn’t that pretty disingenuous? Shouldn’t that have happened 2½ years ago? Shouldn’t that have been something that was obvious? We have got less people answering our ambulance calls than there were before the pandemic. Today we have got less people answering the phone to your call if you ring up and require an ambulance. The reality is that there were 16 000 of us medical professionals who have retired who the government put a call-out to and said, ‘Can you come and help?’. Well, I tell you now, there are plenty of people like me who would have been more than capable to be a call taker. We understand the medical language. We would have been easily able to be put through systems education on how to do the decision tree process that you would need to know, but no. What happened to the 16 000 people who put their name down? It has all been just to look good, with no follow-through.

I feel so concerned for how my fellow nurses are coping. I heard of a nurse who burst into tears in the corridor with a chemotherapy patient, a young man who had sat for 27 hours. He would have been clearly immunocompromised, and he had not even been given food. That is just the basics. It is not the nurses and it is not the kitchen staff; it is the system. They are running ragged, and that is what happens when you are run off your feet: you cannot possibly think of everything.

There are children I am hearing about. One in South-West Coast with a burst appendix could not get a hospital bed at the Royal Children’s Hospital. There were 19 people in front of this five-year-old to get a bed first. This is someone who could have gone into shock and died. That is such a serious condition when you have a burst appendix. A five-week-old infant I heard of recently presented to A and E with bronchiolitis, using all of the accessory muscles of respiration—the classic laboured breathing with saturations of 92. That is low. That poor mother was told to go home by nursing staff, who were devastated to have to say that, because they did not have a bed, and to re-present if the child could no longer suckle, because you cannot breathe and suckle at the breast if you are exerting so much energy in trying to breathe. That mother came back two days later—I do not even think it was two days—and that child had to have a tube put down into its stomach to be able to be fed, a nasogastric. That mother said the nurses were so upset that they had to deliver that message to her.

Another young nurse friend of mine said, ‘It’s no fun going to work anymore. It’s just too hard. It’s soul destroying’. The ambulance officers just want to turn up for the calls that they know are out there. When I drive to Portland now, back and forth to and from Portland, I pass an ambulance with lights on every single time. These are ambulance officers who cannot be at the cardiac arrest or at the motor car accident because they are transferring patients back and forth from Portland to Warrnambool. The system is broken and we need a government to invest in it, not in a rail service project that has already blown out in the costing before it has begun—because it is not genuine, what the Premier thought it would cost. He did it on the back of an envelope, that is clear for all to see. Not even their own organisation that Labor set up, Infrastructure Victoria, is backing this.

We have got Portland hospital, which has been crying out for help for years. It is in a big industrial town with large industry and needing help. There are often no doctors in urgent care; ambulance officers are having to do airway support and get patients across to Warrnambool. So where are the extra ambulances that the government would have had to have known they would need? Where are the extra ambulance officers and call-takers that they could have trained up 2½ years ago, the nurses who needed free university back then to encourage them? The nurses who have been working for two, three and four years under these conditions are the ones who needed help, and this free university would have helped if it had happened two years ago.

The AMA warned of this way before COVID. The perinatal inquiry I was part of warned of the workforce shortages before COVID. In 2017 I was part of that inquiry, which handed down recommendations. Not one recommendation—not one—has been acted on. This is not COVID that they can hide behind. This is a Premier who said ‘I will prepare the health system’ and did not, and ‘I will get 4000 ICU beds’ and did not. This is a Premier who wants to build a rail project from Box Hill to Cheltenham instead of listening to Victorians. They are dying. If I ring an ambulance now, I am frightened that it will not come. I cannot do it without an ambulance backing me up. I cannot do it without a hospital with oxygen and suction on the wall. Listen to Victorians and do what is right: shelve the project.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (17:02): It is a pleasure to rise to make a contribution on this matter of public importance. There have been a number of contributions already in the chamber, and I think clearly there has been some drawing of the battlelines here for the upcoming state election. The member for Bulleen said railway lines are a nice-to-have—they are a nice-to-have and they are not a priority. It probably goes to some of his thinking about public transport generally—you know, having to rub shoulders with the riffraff. He might very well think that the only acceptable public transport is catching an aeroplane somewhere. But the reality is that rail is essential and subterranean rail is essential in a functioning modern city. You cannot run a modern economy without getting people around your city efficiently. It is just not possible. And those who would seek to tear up this project seek also to do untold damage to our economy in the process.

It is so important for governments to do more than just one thing at any given time. To use the phrase that has been used a bit in recent times, this is a government that can walk and chew gum at the same time. Specifically, this is a government that can recruit nurses and remove level crossings at the same time. We are not like some others—those who would just lie and eat lobster at the same time. We are a government that is getting on with the very, very important job of making sure that the health system responds to this unprecedented crisis and delivering on hundreds of new schools, growing the education system, delivering unbelievable changes in transport infrastructure and removing level crossings—because you have got to be able to do more than one thing in government. There is this implication that a Guy government would have presumably three ministers—you would have a premier, a treasurer and a health minister—because that is all they are going to be focused on. It is just not the lived reality. It might make for a cute political sound bite, but it is trite at best and codswallop at worst.

I want to spend a little bit of time speaking about Monash University. Now, I am a Monash alumnus, and since the 1960s we have been talking about the need for proper public transport connections to that campus. Right now from most places in Melbourne you have to connect to multiple services to get to Monash University. It does not matter where you are coming from: you are using rail to get out to Clayton station, say, then getting a bus, or if you are coming from the north, you are getting two separate buses. There are any number of ways of getting to the campus, but almost none involve just the one railway connection. There are 55 000 students, staff and researchers using that campus every day. Monash is an education hub, an employment hub, an arts hub, an innovation hub. It is the single largest employment node outside the CBD, and it will have 160 000 workers there by 2056. Moderna will have a facility there. The heart hospital will be there. In all seriousness, do you think any of this is possible without rail? You simply cannot service an employment, health, arts, education, innovation hub of that scale without rail, and particularly without subterranean rail.

Every modern city of size in the world has a decent subterranean rail system. Melbourne perhaps should have had one already, but we are getting it done—because if you wait, if you kick it into the long grass like those opposite propose, all you do is hand the problem on to a future generation, to a future government. This project is so big it runs way bigger than the life of any one leader, any one Parliament, any one government. Absolutely the Andrews government will not be opening this project, but we are going to start it. We will absolutely get it started because it has to be done. You cannot have a Monash University, a Monash employment hub with 160 000 workers and tens and tens of thousands of students and all sorts of people using that precinct, without rail. It is just an impossibility. Railway lines are not a nice-to-have, they are a must-have—they are a priority—but it is possible to have more than one priority in government.

I cannot think of a single government that has literally had no priorities at all—well, perhaps the Baillieu government. This notion that there is only one thing for government to do at any one time is an absolute furphy. The carping negativity of those opposite speaks to a mindset that says, ‘We would rather the government fail than succeed’ to suit their own political interests, because they do not really exist to do good in the world or deliver for their communities; their raison d’être is just to keep Labor out of office.

You have to walk and chew gum at the same time; you have to be able to do more than one thing in government. If you are a government of ambition and of vision and of a real sense of purpose, then you have got to be able to do more than one thing, and this government has categorically, from the start, not wasted a day in doing way more than one thing. It is possible to deliver treaty at the same time as removing level crossings. It is possible to employ 4000 more doctors and 10 000 more nurses and 2000 more paramedics whilst at the same time making record investments in the education system. Government is way bigger than one thing. There is a reason we have a cabinet government with portfolios and there is more than one minister; it is because there is a lot going on. This notion that you should only be focused on one thing at any one time is just a trite, too cute, silly, immature little way of creating a sound bite for an election campaign, but it is miles and miles away from good government. Do not take my word for it. The Premier of New South Wales, when he was asked about claims made by those opposite that the pressures in our health system are unique to Victoria, said they are ‘not unique’ to Victoria. He said:

Every state health system around the country and around the world is under pressure and that is only natural, particularly in circumstances where we’ve come through a one in 100 year pandemic …

He said:

The issues we face in New South Wales are not unique to the issues we face in Victoria—they’re all similar, our health systems are under pressure, and we need to work together for a better way.

No surprises—Premier Perrottet has not exactly been breaking bread with the member for Bulleen, and he said the reason for that was he was there with the Premier of Victoria:

… to not talk about politics, but to talk about people, to talk about reform of health in this great country …

He said:

I’m sitting here with a Premier who wants to get things done and look after his people.

Dom, we agree. We are in furious agreement indeed. Isn’t it nice, isn’t it refreshing, when a Liberal leader in this country gets up and just calls it straight, tells the truth and actually leads rather than getting bogged down in this carping negativity, this endless drive to the bottom which seems to be the modus operandi of the Victorian Liberal Party.

It surprises no-one—laypeople understand, the people of Victoria understand—that when demand for health services goes up, as it has, not because of anything the government has done but because of the global pandemic, and supply comes down because people cannot work because they are burnt out or they have got COVID or their family members have COVID and they are furloughed, of course there is going to be disruption. Victorians understand that. Victorians are clever. They get it. They understand all of the feedback that all of my colleagues and I are getting at the doors, and we are knocking on thousands of them right now—thousands and thousands of doors. I do not know what this lot are up to; they are certainly not doorknocking in my patch. But from all the feedback we are getting, people understand that very basic arithmetic construct that when demand for a service goes up and supply comes down, there is going to be a disconnect. There are going to be delays. There is going to be disruption.

Those opposite can build—or promise to build, rather—a bunch of new hospitals, but it is pointless if you do not have a plan to staff them. Building empty hospitals—I mean, they would be easier to run without patients, I guess, and without staff. You know, you would just keep them empty. It is a furphy, and it is an extraordinary misleading of the Victorian people to pretend that somehow the solution to problems in the health system is cancelling a very important piece of rail infrastructure and that the cause of the problems in the health system is solely down to the actions of one man. It is bollocks, and it will not stand up to scrutiny.

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (17:12): It is wonderful to speak to this very eloquent motion that has been put forward today by the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bulleen, Matthew Guy, which shines a true light on the health crisis that is facing all of Victoria.

Ms Addison: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I believe that we are required to use the correct names for members of this house, not anything else. Referring to ‘Matthew Guy’ I do not believe is how it is supposed to be.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Member for Lowan, proceed using the correct titles.

Ms KEALY: Isn’t it interesting that when you hear from members of the Andrews Labor government all they want to do is say, ‘We can do it all. You can do both. We can do it all’. But let us go back to the facts. Let us go back to the budget that was handed down in May of this year. Was there more money for the health system? No, there was not. Was there at least the same amount of money going into the health system—a health system that is in crisis, a health system that has got a 70 per cent increase in the number of Victorians on the elective surgery waitlist? Is it looking at putting more money into making sure we can train more staff, we can build more hospitals and we can actually deliver the health services that every single Victorian needs and deserves? Is it about delivering enough ESTA staff to be able to know that when you call 000 when you have a loved one or somebody that you know who is in critical need to get to hospital for medical intervention and support, somebody is going to answer the call, someone is going to send an ambulance immediately to you and they are going to pick you up and take you to a hospital and not wait for hours ramped outside the front of the hospital or triage you in a tent during freezing cold Melbourne weather when you are an 83-year-old woman who has suffered a stroke? They want to make sure that they can actually go in and get treatment straightaway.

So we look at this statement: ‘You can do both’. What a load of absolute bunkum. If you can do both, why did you cut $2 billion out of the health budget this year? Why did you cut $2 billion out of the health budget, and where did you put it? Did you put it into another business case, into another little consortium getting a bit of money for a consultation or something else that is taking money away from delivering the health services that Victorians desperately need? And they have never needed them more before than they do today because Victoria’s health system—and we hear this from everybody in this place—is in crisis, but the Andrews Labor government simply do not have a plan to fix it.

The words that come out of their mouths when it comes to the health system in this state cannot be believed at all. Before the last election we heard a promise that there would be 10 regional hospitals built, but in fact if you look back over the last eight years of the Andrews Labor government, there are 11 fewer health services in regional Victoria. There are 11 fewer health services in regional Victoria than there were eight years ago. This is following a promise there would be 10 new hospitals built—just in 2018.

Ms Addison interjected.

Ms KEALY: I take up the interjection by the member for Wendouree, who says it is dodgy maths. Perhaps she should go back and look at the number of annual reports that were tabled in this place in 2014. If you count the list of public health services, there are 11 fewer health services in Victoria than there were eight years ago. The Andrews Labor government is behind those closures, and that is what the Andrews Labor government truly stands for. We can look at the promises from even this year: ‘We’re going to build the Geelong women’s and children’s hospital’ and ‘We’re going to build the Melton hospital’—promises made before the last election as well. But when you look at the budget papers, the Premier was absolutely humiliated by the member for Gippsland South asking, ‘What does “TBC” stand for, Premier?’. He was not happy to go through that, because he was called out on these announcements and all this glory and all this talk about building these very important pieces of infrastructure that would deliver more health services—and they are not actually even budgeted for. They are nothing more than a blank line item that sometime in the future they might provide money for. It is nothing more than a pipedream. The government is selling empty promises.

It is no different to the 4000 ICU beds that were promised back in March of 2020, when during this time all of us were stuck in lockdowns and restrictions. So many people suffered from mental ill health during that period because they could not go out and see their friends and family. They could not go out and have dinner together and celebrate important milestones. There were people who could not gather for funerals; they could not gather for any reason at all. They could not even go to school. We had mums who were suffering from enormous stress because they were working from home and supervising their kids’ homeschooling. Some of them also had babies during that period. There was an enormous amount of pressure. And what happened during that time? Did we have any improvement to the overall mental health of Victorians in this state? No, we did not. Did we see family violence rates go up because people were locked up with their perpetrators? Yes, we did. Did we see the impact of people who did not have their cancer screening done? They are now rolling out through the state, with cancers being diagnosed at a much later stage, needing more extensive treatment and with much, much worse outcomes. That is what we have seen from the Andrews Labor government, who say that they have got this under control. ‘Look at what we’re doing’, when in fact what they are doing is absolutely crucifying Victoria’s health system.

I take note of the member for Burwood, who has left the chamber now, who said, ‘We can’t blame it on this one man’. Well, do you know what? The Premier has been either the Premier or the Minister for Health in this state for 12 of the past 16 years. This has happened under his watch. The whole health system was in crisis before we got into COVID, but COVID has absolutely exacerbated it.

I would like to make special mention of every single health worker, because so often we hear, ‘You’re just criticising the health workers’. I am sorry; that is not correct. I have family who are health workers. I am a health worker. I have got friends who are health workers. I always stand by the health workers, but do you know what? There are more than just the health workers who are rewarded who work within the public health system. I got an email last week from a very, very distressed radiographer from my electorate. She works for a private pathology company which is contracted by our public hospital to deliver radiology services. She has not received a dollar of extra COVID funding, even though she has had to continue to work throughout the COVID lockdowns and restrictions. She has not received any support. She is not getting any of the trickles that are coming through from the government that are going to the public health system. I think by just focusing on one special segment we are actually really letting down a significant proportion of health workers in this state.

It does not matter who you are and who you work for. If you are delivering support and care for Victorians, you should be praised and thanked and supported, and it does not matter who you are or what classification you are. I do not mind if you are a nurse or if you are an admin worker or if you work in food services or if you are working to make sure that the bills are paid on time—you are helping to make sure that that hospital is working, and you are delivering services that support the overall treatment of the hospital.

Ms Addison interjected.

Ms KEALY: I note I have got another interjection by the member for Wendouree. The payment that the government is going to make does not go to anybody in the private health system. Even if they are subcontracted and deliver those services on site at a public hospital, there is no alternative to that and there are only those staff available. They are missing out.

Can I also point to this ridiculous thought bubble, an announcement that is nothing more than words, about these GP clinics that are being set up in Melbourne. I have got critical areas in my electorate that do not have doctors at this point in time. It is something I have written to the Victorian Minister for Health about because it is having a massive flow-on effect on our emergency departments. There has been no interest at all, and yet we saw the announcement earlier this week, which was around setting up more GP clinics in Melbourne. Why isn’t the focus on helping to establish GP clinics in places like Casterton, Coleraine or even Mildura, which now has 15 000 patients that do not have a GP to go to? I note the comments from the Rural Doctors Association of Victoria that with opening hours similar to metro centres these would have to be open 6 or 7 hours a day, seven days a week—it is really not clear to me where we are going to find that workforce—and that:

The state government says new centres will be located in existing GP clinics and can be open for extended hours without needing to hire more doctors.

So no more doctors, no more GP clinics—it is actually nothing more than a media release. This is exactly what we expect from the Andrews Labor government—a range of false promises, a range of things that they have got absolutely no intention of delivering. All they intend to do is to continue to cut the health system—another $2 billion cut that we felt this year. Only the Liberal-Nationals will fix Victoria’s health crisis.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (17:22): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the opposition’s matter of public importance this afternoon moved by the member for Bulleen—and goodness me, what is going on here? We have had the member for Bulleen roll in. He has done his MPI, and no-one is here anymore. They have given up. It is barely an hour and a half in, and they have tapped the mat. This is the election MPI. This is where you get revved up. There are 75 days to go to pre-poll, and they have gone home. There is no-one here because this is not a genuine policy position of course.

I thought, ‘What’s going on here? What’s going on?’. This is a deeply popular policy, the Suburban Rail Loop. It absolutely slayed them in the east. It has led to significant deterioration in their vote and their margin. It polls through the roof. It is still smashing the focus groups. And you think, ‘What’s going on here? What are they doing? Why are they walking away from such a significant project?’. I mean, the Shadow Minister for Transport Infrastructure cannot work out if it is road or rail; the member in the other place Matt Bach does not know if you can drive on it with a car or a train. He is still trying to work that out, still trying to work it out from that train wreck—I did not say road wreck—of an interview with Virginia Trioli where he did not know whether he was coming or going on that. I thought, ‘What’s this all about? Why are they walking away from such a significantly popular policy?’. And I thought, ‘What was the context, and what was going on that week?’. We had a donation scandal. We had staff haemorrhaging in the Leader of the Opposition’s office, and they needed a quick win, a quick diversion off the news cycle, because it was eroding their primary and their base substantially. They were absolutely haemorrhaging, and they needed a diversion. They needed to get off this quick. Mitch Catlin had gone. A number of staff had gone. A number of people had given up on the opposition, and they needed to move quickly. This was high risk and high stakes, because when you are asking about a coalition who were the worst opposition in this nation when it came to the issues of the pandemic and following the health advice that underpinned the support for our health workers, you wonder why they would make that decision.

The game was given up this week when the Premier of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, in a show of significant bipartisanship and the work that is being done by the state and territory leaders at the national cabinet, came together with our Premier to announce a significant policy on these primary care facilities—25 in Victoria and 25 in New South Wales. Premier Perrottet was quite clear in his comments:

Asked whether he agreed with statements made by the Victorian opposition that pressures on Victoria’s health system were unique to the state, Mr Perrottet said: “They are not unique to Victoria.”

“Every state health system around the country and around the world is under pressure and that is only natural, particularly in circumstances where …

we have a once-in-100-year pandemic. Maybe the Leader of the Opposition was not invited to the announcement or did not know Premier Perrottet was in the state. Maybe Premier Perrottet went to his phone and said, ‘I went to call Matthew Guy but instead I called Matt Guy, Matty G’—what is he today? He is changing his name. He has got a brand change. We have no idea, because on any given day he is changing policy and changing position.

No-one in their right mind would trust an opposition that stands out on the front steps and undermines vaccines and undermines public health messages like those in the coalition did—undermining the scientific empirical evidence and advice. There is a really interesting feature of all their announcements on health so far. None of them have health workers or anyone in the health industry with them. It is just the Shadow Minister for Health and the Leader of the Opposition because health workers in Victoria know that when the going got tough during those years of the pandemic it was the Andrews Labor government and the national cabinet that stood strong with health workers.

Those opposite cannot come back two years later trying to emulate a South Australian-type election. The Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, did not undermine health advice throughout that time. Chris Minns did not undermine health advice throughout that time. They have respected the health advice. They have had differences of views on issues, and that has played out, but they did not attack the very people on the front line. They did not undermine the health workers each and every day in their actions and pitch to a hardline far-right base.

That is where they find themselves at the moment. It played out federally in May 2022. It is playing out in Victoria right now. All the warning signs were there. The polling at the time that they chopped the member for Malvern was in the mid-30s, the mid to low 30s, and they have seen a substantial deterioration in their base and their primary as they run further to the far right and as they run away from the traditional Liberal values that they all supposedly espouse. So when they come in here and talk about investing in health, Victorians are not going to be fooled by those opposite. They are not going to be fooled by their actions when they had the opportunity in government. And one of the most disgraceful efforts in health policy—the cuts to health and the attacks on our paramedics that were played out by a member for Southern Metropolitan, David Davis, who has been shown up today and finally called out for his deplorable behaviour—was shown up during that time. The damage that was done during that time was astronomical. They do not forget, health workers. They do not forget the trauma, the impact and the hard work that was put on them. When they literally went to war with our paramedics—no-one forgets that. So when they do their health announcements on the side of the kerb with no-one around them and they put up a Liberal banner, people know that is because health workers do not trust them and do not trust the undermining of health advice.

It goes further in cutting such a substantial project. The Suburban Rail Loop is generation changing. The Melbourne Metro rail tunnel would not have happened if it were not for the Andrews Labor government. The Andrews Labor government has funded every single element of that project while the state coalition back in 2010 shelved it and walked away from it. It was the leading project of Infrastructure Australia, and they abandoned Victorians. Why should our communities be condemned to hundreds of thousands of vehicles, the impacts on climate change, the emissions that come from the transport industry and more cars? Fifteen per cent of our emissions are from cars on our roads. Why would we walk away from such a significant project? But they cannot even bring themselves to fully oppose it, because they know how popular it is. They know how popular this is. There are going to shelve it for a period of time, undefined. They did not actually have the guts to scrap it and say they would not do it. They would shelve it. They would increase costs into the future. They have absolutely no credibility or coherence here. Victorians know this. Why should my community be condemned to hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the coming years because we do not have the Suburban Rail Loop? That means more time away from family. That means more impact on our climate. It means less time at home with your family and your loved ones. One in eight in my community catch public transport, and we need to increase that even further. The Melbourne Metro rail tunnel will be open in a couple of years time under an Andrews Labor government that has funded it itself. At least now at the commonwealth level we have a federal partner that is investing in infrastructure in Victoria. It is a substantial contribution that has been made by the Albanese Labor government, and it is futureproofing our communities.

Victorians do not want one trick; they do not want one policy. We are the best state in the nation. We are the most aspirational people, and we want the best outcomes for our people. We do not just want one policy area; we want it all, and Victorians deserve it all. They deserve the very best public transport system. They deserve the very best education. They deserve free kinder. They deserve the best kinder services, and they deserve the very best from our paramedics, our health services and our hospitals. And guess what? The Andrews Labor government delivers all those things and more. We got our paramedic response times to their best ever in 2019, and we will take them back there because of the effort and work of our communities and our amazing paramedics. I caught up with the Mordialloc branch only last week, and they are an extraordinary bunch of people doing incredible work in our community to keep our residents safe in their time of need. We are investing in hundreds more paramedics. We have seen 22 000 more health workers—7000 more on the way, and 5000 are going to be nurses. We are upgrading hospitals and health services all across this state, because we can do both.

That is what Victorians have now. Do they go with an opposition that has torn to pieces the public health advice, that would have put our communities at greater risk and would have put more stress on our health system in the absence of a vaccine all through the pandemic? We know how they were tearing down Victorians going through such significant challenges. We have come out the other side stronger and better, and we are building back better as a state and as a nation. Victoria is the engine room of the national economy, and nothing has changed. Victorians deserve the very best. Do they pick an opposition who have jumped on a health message, trying to divert from an absolute crisis in the member for Bulleen’s office, or do they back an Andrews Labor government who has had bold, visionary policies and made investment in health, investment in education and investment in public transport that has changed the lives of Victorians for the future?

If you do not believe that, then look at the comments of the Premier of New South Wales, Dom Perrottet. Look at the comments of a member for Western Metropolitan Region Bernie Finn, who pleaded with the Leader of the Opposition to do the right thing and resign—consider his position. Maybe those opposite have still got a sitting week to go to call a partyroom meeting and do the right thing on behalf of Victorians. Or maybe there is the member for Kew, who apparently is not a liar even though his account is different to the member for Bulleen’s. I do not know. Who is telling the truth then? Who was telling the truth in that moment? When the member for Kew is not a liar but has a different account to the member for Bulleen, more questions have to be answered. The credibility of the opposition leader is in absolute tatters, and one has to ask: why did you leave the member for Malvern? He was polling in the low 30s. You should have stuck with Mr 11 per cent.

Mr ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (17:32): I also rise to speak on the matter of public importance as submitted by the member for Bulleen, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party. The member for Bulleen in his matter of public importance raised some very serious issues that are affecting our state at the moment and some very serious choices that our state faces in the not-too-distant future. The choice that the Victorian people face at the November election this year could not be clearer. The choice is between a Labor government that is tired, that has been responsible for health in this state for the last eight years in government and for the majority of the last two decades, that has frankly stuffed the health system, or a Liberal government led by the member for Bulleen and his colleagues, people who have worked in the health system, people who understand the health system, people who stand up for their communities, who show empathy, who show understanding, who show concern for their communities and who have fresh ideas, new ideas responding to the challenges of our time.

The option that the Victorian people face on 26 November is an opportunity to turn the page in this state’s history, to turn the page from a focus on something that the independent Parliamentary Budget Office has already indicated is well over budget on the government’s current estimates to fixing the greatest crisis that this state has faced since the Second World War, and that is the current health crisis. More than 87 000 of our fellow Victorians are on the surgery waiting list at the moment. Very often in politics, Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware and as other members would be aware as well, we refer to numbers, we refer to statistics, and it is quite easy I think to sometimes not think about how every single one of those more than 87 000 Victorians is a mother or a father, a brother or a sister, is a relative, is a friend, is a neighbour, is a small business owner, is a teacher—is a member of our community that deserves the very, very best that this state can offer, that their government can offer.

But their government has failed them. Labor has failed them and continues to fail them. Conversations that I have had with a number of medical professionals in this state, and certainly in my community, indicate that that headline number of 87 000 people on the hospital waiting list at the moment is not the real number. It is not an accurate number. A local surgeon only a couple of months ago said to me that he was running, in an outpatient clinic, a clinic in the general surgical space. He saw a patient who he thought in his medical professional opinion needed surgery, a category 1 surgery. He filled out the paperwork and admitted that patient onto the waiting list for urgent surgery. A couple of weeks later he had a surgical list, and this patient’s name was not on the list. He was deeply concerned by this. He followed up with health administrators who said that the reason why that patient was not on the surgical list for that day for him to operate on was that in the hospital administrator’s view that patient was not ready for care. That was the phrase used: ‘Not ready for care’. So we have got people in this state who are not even considered as part of that 87 000 Victorians who are in need of medical attention, who do need medical care, and they are not getting it.

The member for Bendigo East, the Deputy Premier, quoted my words back at me in a ministers statement in question time just last sitting week. I gave an interview to Channel 10 following the release of the environment effects statement for the Suburban Rail Loop. When I said to the journalist at the time, ‘No-one in my community has ever asked for the Suburban Rail Loop’, the minister used that against me as a point of ridicule. But I will be frank, nobody in my community has ever asked for a train line from Cheltenham to Box Hill—no-one ever. Do you know what they have asked for? They have asked for investment in Sandringham Hospital. They ask for protection of open space. They ask for greater access to sporting grounds, to passive recreation areas, to set up our community in a way that prepares us for the next generation, for a greater population influx into our community. That is what they have asked me for.

I am not denying that there is a transport deficit when it comes to connecting my community to places like Monash University. There absolutely is, and more needs to be done about that. But spending the amount of money that the Andrews Labor government proposes to spend on the Suburban Rail Loop to fix that, maybe in 15 years time, is not the priority that we should be focusing on at the moment. The priority we should be focusing on at the moment is the health of Victorians. As the member for Bulleen said in his contribution, what could be more important than that?

The Suburban Rail Loop itself is not as straightforward as those opposite might assume or might assert that it is. In fact the environment effects statement identified a number of very serious contaminants in the land at the Sir William Fry Reserve based in my electorate at the intersection of Bay Road and Nepean Highway, Highett. Under the Suburban Rail Loop proposal by this government it is proposed that more than 40 per cent of that current open space is permanently removed to make way for the Suburban Rail Loop. But I assert that we have got, potentially, the West Gate tunnel project mark 2 on our hands here. Taken from the environment effects statement on the Suburban Rail Loop:

The construction of SRL East will disturb contaminated land and groundwater …. The project will generate large volumes of spoil of which nearly one third is predicted to be prescribed waste requiring careful management and disposal.

It goes on:

A 3.5 m thick layer of contaminated fill will be excavated for the station box at Cheltenham … The management and disposal of contaminated spoil from the Cheltenham SRL station site needs to address: odours and contaminated dust and potential effects on local residents and users of the Southland Shopping Centre; and groundwater quality and contamination, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals, cyanide identified in fill.

This has the potential to be West Gate Tunnel mark 2. Which private operator would take on this risk? Which private operator would take on the risk to remove this contaminated soil with cyanide in it wafting over the back fences of those residents in Pennydale and those residents in Cheltenham—good, earnest, hardworking people in my community?

We have an opportunity at this point in history to draw a line in the sand and say: our priority is the health of our people. Our priority is the health of every Victorian. Our priority is to say to Victorians when they call 000 there is going to be someone who answers the phone and an ambulance that arrives to help them. It is our opportunity to say to those 87 000 people who are currently on the waiting list and those countless other people who are on the waiting list that hospital administrators are keeping secret to this point in time: we will help you. You will get the surgery you need when you need it. What could be more important than that? And this government says, ‘We can walk and chew gum; we can do both at the same time’. My goodness—if they could do both at the same time, why are we currently experiencing a health crisis? They have got Victoria’s Big Build underway, and they say that they are putting all of this investment into public health—and yet there are still 87 000 of our fellow Victorians on the waiting list; there are still people who call 000, and they do not get an answer and they do not get an ambulance. It is true—people are dying while they are waiting for health care.

We have a choice, and it is a clear choice. The shelving of the Suburban Rail Loop project would mean in my community that we get to preserve more than 40 per cent of the Sir William Fry Reserve for our community, preparing for future generations, preserving that land for future generations, and it would mean that we no longer need to follow the line of Labor, and that is to increase taxes—42 new taxes, increases to taxes or levies in this term of government—to pay for an urgent upgrade for the modernisation of our Sandringham Hospital. That is what my community will vote for.

Mr STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (17:42): It is an absolute pleasure to get up and speak on this matter of public importance raised by this useless opposition. I am following on from the member for Sandringham, and I must confess I do like the member for Sandringham. I first met the member for Sandringham when we were both at school together at St Bede’s. But I would say to the member for Sandringham that he does himself no favours in his ultra-marginal seat opposing the Suburban Rail Loop, because the people of his electorate are going to be the chief beneficiaries of the Suburban Rail Loop. I would hazard a guess that if you went anywhere in the Sandringham electorate and you asked them, ‘Do you want a rail line from your local area to Monash University?’, for instance, the biggest university in Australia, I reckon they would say yes. What do you think? I think they would say yes.

I suppose my concern on the member for Sandringham’s behalf at this political tactic in that ultra-marginal seat is really related to my observation about this opposition. I think oppositions, as they go on further in opposition, usually get better; usually they get stronger. But there is something unusual happening in Victoria. We have an opposition that is actually getting worse by the day. They are getting weaker. After eight years in opposition you have got the member for Sandringham, the member for Brighton and the member for Caulfield in the fight of their lives. What a diabolical situation to be in. I mean, there is delicious poetry here this week that we have got pot plants in Queen’s Hall. Well, we have got pot plants on display on the opposition benches week after week. This is a useless opposition, the worst opposition we have ever had, and here they are. They have come up with this doozy of a policy where they are going to shelve an infrastructure project that people voted for in overwhelming numbers at the 2018 election because all of a sudden they care about public health, apparently. They care about public health. Well, this opposition is the same party—you know, the Liberal Party—that in the 1990s closed 17 hospitals, including the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. They ripped 1400 beds out of the system and they sacked 3500 nurses. The last time they were in government, when the Leader of the Opposition sat around the cabinet table, they tried to cut the number of nurses and midwives in Victoria and replace them with cheaper assistants in nursing. Imagine if they had succeeded in cutting the numbers of nurses and midwives at that time. Imagine the implications of that decision during the pandemic, including in this period when we are rebuilding from the pandemic and when our public hospitals are under enormous pressure. And of course that former government was at war with our paramedics.

Then in opposition they undermined the public health response to this pandemic. They are anti-maskers. At one stage they were even against testing. I mean, listen, after all of this we are led to believe that these people care about public health. I heard the member for South-West Coast, who every time she gets up here says she is a former nurse. Of course she is a former nurse. She said in her contribution today that she hears from nurses who are burnt out. Yes, nurses are burnt out because of people like you. The member for South-West Coast was one of those members of the opposite benches who last year was outside on the front steps of Parliament fraternising with anti-vax protesters waving nooses around in the air, and all of a sudden—

Mr R Smith: Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

Quorum formed.

Mr STAIKOS: I tell you what, the pot plants of the opposition do not like hearing the truth. They do not like hearing the truth. But do you know what, member for South-West Coast? There is no point coming in here and saying, ‘I’m a former nurse’, if you have done nothing to assist our nurses during this pandemic. In fact what they have done is undermine our healthcare workers, and we will never forget that. We will never, ever forget that.

This is an opposition trying to now convince us after this track record that they care about the public health system. Give me an absolute break. It is just vaudevillian, frankly. It is just absolutely comical that they now have this policy: ‘We didn’t build anything when we were in government, but we’re going to shelve a project that the people of Victoria voted for, because suddenly, after what has happened in the last few years and after what we did in government the last two times we were in government, we care about the health system’—absolutely ridiculous.

We are going to do both, and we are doing both. The Suburban Rail Loop is needed. It is needed because by 2030 Melbourne will be the size of Sydney. By 2050 Melbourne will be the size of London. Those of us on this side of the house believe that Melbourne is one of the great cities of the world and we need a transport system befitting a great city of the world, so we will build the Suburban Rail Loop. Those opposite have said very, very clearly that they oppose a rail line to the largest university in Australia, Monash University. They oppose a rail line to Monash hospital. In fact we had the Leader of the Opposition saying, ‘Nobody takes a train to hospital’, but in the same breath we heard him giving free public transport to nurses. I mean, they do not know what they are doing.

As I said at the outset, normally oppositions, the longer they are in opposition, get better. These guys get worse. Normally oppositions get stronger. These guys get weaker. And now they are in the diabolical position after eight years in opposition where they are sandbagging seats that they have never lost before. What a horrible situation to be in.

Ms Ward: Would one be Caulfield?

Mr STAIKOS: Caulfield is one of them. Caulfield, Brighton, Sandringham—those members are in the fights of their lives. Frankly if we go through those seats the Suburban Rail Loop line will go through, at the start you have got the seat of Sandringham and then you have got seats like Ashwood. My old mate Asher Judah is the Liberal candidate in Ashwood. It is funny, I have not seen Asher mention this policy of shelving the Suburban Rail Loop. I have not seen him mention that on his socials. Then you have got the seat of Box Hill. They have written Box Hill off. They are not going to win that back. This is where they are. This is the worst opposition in living memory. I mean, we had the Leader of The Nationals talking about how it is going to take a statue for them to win government. It will take a miracle for you to win government. You people are useless.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (17:52): I rise to speak on a very important matter of importance, and that is the future of our health system in this state. I note that the government have spent a whole heap of time talking about themselves, talking about arrogance, talking about how they are going to romp through an election. Again, they are a government that have not cared about the people since they were elected in 2018 or for the last eight years, a government that cares about themselves and nobody else.

This matter of public importance is all about people. It is all about a health crisis that did not happen yesterday, that did not happen during the pandemic; it has happened for years. 87 000 people are on elective surgery waitlists waiting for serious surgeries. Each and every one of those people has a story, each and every one of those 87 000 people has a family and each and every one of those people has been let down by the Andrews government, which has done nothing to reduce the elective surgery waitlist—nothing. 87 000 people would fill the MCG. Think about the MCG during a Carlton-Collingwood football game: they are the people waiting for an operation under the Andrews Labor government and who have been let down by the Andrews Labor government, which is so arrogant that it cares solely about itself and not about fixing the healthcare crisis.

We are proud—and we are absolutely with the people—on the Liberal-Nationals side to be supporting what is right, fixing the healthcare crisis. That is what this matter of public importance does. That is what we will do, that is what we have done and that is what our policy is. This government and the Premier say, ‘We can do it all’. The Premier has had 12 of 16 years where he was the Premier or the health minister to fix the health system that is now in crisis. He has had the keys to the door to do that, and look at the state of affairs now.

You cannot do it all. Every single Victorian that is struggling with cost-of-living pressures at this current point in time knows that you have to balance a budget and manage money. They know that sometimes they have got to go without to be able to put food on the table. Well, this government thinks that there is a magic pudding. There is a magic pudding and they say, ‘You know what? We’ll build rail from Box Hill to Cheltenham’. Whether it is stage 1, stage 2 or stage 3, whether it is $35 billion, $50 billion, $100 billion or $200 billion, it does not matter, because according to the Andrews government, money grows on trees. You just go out, pick a little bit and away you go. The public know that that is not the case. The public have woken up and say, ‘What we want is a government that cares, a government that will fix the health crisis and a government where you will know that under a change and a focus on health you will be able to get a bed when you need one, you will be able to ring 000 and somebody will actually answer the phone, and you will not have to wait for an ambulance to come or to be ramped outside a hospital’.

Mr Richardson interjected.

Mr SOUTHWICK: A Caulfield North woman—and I say that to the member for Mordialloc, who is interjecting at the moment—died. She died, member for Mordialloc, in April 2021 after waiting 6½ hours for an ambulance. This is a quote from her brother:

This is the world we live in now. My sister was 32. She called 000 and was left there for nearly seven hours. No it’s not a third world country, not even an outer suburb. This is Caulfield.

That is the state of our health system now. That is the state, where it is a lucky dip for whether you get an ambulance, where it is a lucky dip when you ring 000 and where it is a lucky dip for whether you get a bed. That is simply not good enough. It is not good enough, and that is why our priority is health. We are not hiding the fact. We know the election in November will be a referendum. Do you fix your health crisis or do you say, ‘We’re just going to have a bit of everything and just throw some money on the table for everything and do it half-heartedly’? We know that you cannot do both because the government have had eight years to do both and they have failed. The government might turn around and say, ‘Well, you know what? It’s a pandemic’. Well, the ramping issue, member for Mordialloc, did not happen yesterday. It did not just happen during—

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair. There is too much interjection here.

Mr SOUTHWICK: The ramping did not happen yesterday. Research that was published by the Medical Journal of Australia analysed more than 200 000 people taken to Victorian hospitals via ambulance for non-traumatic chest pain from 2015 to 2019. It found that ramping had been escalating even before COVID hit. This was not just a problem during COVID, this was a problem before COVID. The Andrews government said we all needed to be locked down for 263 days to get the health system in order. We all did our bit. What did the government do? It did nothing, nada, zero. We are in a worse situation now than we were even during lockdown.

The government that promised they would fix the health system failed. During COVID, when we were all in lockdown and we had the contact tracing and everything set up, what did the government do? They were using fax machines to actually do the contact tracing. In the end what did the government then do? They went to New South Wales. They sent a party over there to find out how to do it because they could not do it here. This is an archaic system, a system that has been broken for many, many years—not a system that was broken yesterday, a system that has been broken for a number of years under a Premier that was the health minister for 12 of 16 years. The government could have fixed it, should have fixed it, has not fixed it and has failed, and it does not deserve another term. When you hear of 21 cases of people that have died waiting for an ambulance, that is simply not good enough. This is not the Third World. You had Alisha Hussein, 14, a schoolgirl, who died after having an asthma attack. A 000 call did not connect for more than 15 minutes—no contact. Her mother had already driven her to hospital, and her daughter was pronounced dead an hour later after a cardiac arrest. There is issue after issue after issue—children, babies, parents, mums and dads not here today because of a failed system under the Andrews Labor government.

We make no excuses for what we are going to do under a Guy government going forward. We are going to fix the healthcare crisis because that is our commitment. It will be a referendum: do you want a rail from Cheltenham to Box Hill that is not costed, that is not supported by any business case whatsoever and not supported by Infrastructure Australia, that the Premier has failed to cost and that the Minister for Transport Infrastructure has failed to cost or tell us how much it is going to cost on the never-never, or are we going to say, ‘We are going to take the money that is going to be set for 15 years?’. And the Minister for Health says, ‘How much money?’, because the government do not know how much money. The health minister does not know how much money. They have got no clue. What we are going to do is take every single dollar and we are going to put it into health.

As the Minister for Health, you should be very happy about that because your system has failed. The minister’s health system has failed. The Minister for Health is the fourth Minister for Health in the job, and there have been four of them in four years—all failed. It is on rotation. Once they get their training wheels on, they learn a bit, they fail and they move out, and then the government bring another health minister in. It is absolutely Fawlty Towers. This government is the Fawlty Towers of the health system. They have fail after fail after fail—a health minister failure after failure after failure—and who knows what is going to be written of this government.

We are going to fix the health system. Caulfield Hospital will be built. It is a 100-year-plus hospital, built in the war days, and I invite the Minister for Health at the table to come down to Caulfield Hospital, look the people in the eyes and talk to my residents. We have a hydrotherapy pool that has been closed for years—for years. A breezeway has been gone for years, and you blame someone else. The minister blames someone else. It is someone else’s problem, someone else’s failure. Minister, you should take responsibility. This health minister has failed. She has only been there 5 minutes, and she has failed. Every single one of them has failed. This government is a failure when it comes to health. Minister, you are a failure when it comes to health. We will fix it. We will get on with it, and we will make sure health will be a number one priority in Victoria. It will be fixed because it has to be fixed. Victorians have had enough—had enough of your lunacy.