Tuesday, 20 September 2022

 Ms THOMAS (Macedon—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services) (14:13): I rise to update the house on the Andrews Labor government’s positive plans for our health system and hospitals. Victorians have a choice come November between a Labor government that is doing what matters and the Liberal alternative of cuts and closures. Today I joined the Premier to announce that a re-elected Labor government will deliver a $1 billion hospital plan for the north. This will see the upgrading of two of Victoria’s busiest emergency departments, at the Austin and indeed at the Northern Hospital, as well as a new inpatient tower at the Northern Hospital. We know that Melbourne’s northern suburbs are growing, and that is why Labor will grow the capacity of these hospitals to support an extra 85 000 patients.

While those opposite have no plan to staff our health system, we will continue to grow our healthcare workforce because we understand that world-class health care is about so much more than bricks and mortar. In addition to the more than $12 billion we have already invested in health infrastructure, we have recruited an additional 22 000 healthcare workers and we have plans to grow, to recruit and to train a further 24 000. Of course we are making it free to study nursing in our universities. What is more, only a Labor government can be trusted to continue to protect nurse-to-patient ratios. Those opposite broke their promises to the nurses of Victoria to keep mandated minimum nurse- and midwife-to-patient ratios. They went to war with our nurses and our paramedics. Victorians know that if the Liberals were given the chance, they would do exactly the same again, They have repeatedly attacked the Austin Hospital; indeed they were planning to sell it off and, what is more, to starve that hospital— (Time expired)