Thursday, 15 May 2025
Motions
Healthcare workforce
Motions
Healthcare workforce
That this house acknowledges the massive investment of the Allan Labor government in the health workforce, including:
(1) growing the workforce by more than 50 per cent;
(2) increasing nurse and midwife pay by 28.4 per cent;
(3) growing the on-road paramedic workforce by over 50 per cent; and
(4) upskilling thousands of health professionals.
Victorians well know that when it comes to investments in their health care, there is only one side of the chamber that they can trust, and that is the Labor side here on the government benches, where we devote our time to supporting our hardworking healthcare workers so that in turn they can deliver to us the health care that we need. I know that everyone on this side of the chamber joins me in expressing our thanks to our hardworking health workers – nurses and midwives, paramedics and doctors, allied health professionals, but also our cooks, our cleaners and the ward clerks. So many people play an important role in the delivery of health care in this state. I would say too, because I think it is a point of contrast between ourselves and those on the other side of the chamber, that on this side we value all workers and we value the contribution that everyone makes. We believe that all work is important, that all work carries dignity and that all work requires respect.
We also as a government understand that there are some people who for a range of reasons have the opportunities to develop their skills at the highest of levels not just because they have very big brains but because they have been supported to develop those skills. I am very proud too that on this side of the house we respect those healthcare professionals who are operating at a world-class level in everything that they do. We respect their knowledge and their expertise. One of the disturbing things that I have noticed over the last few years arising from the conspiracy theories that flourished during the COVID years is that there are plenty of people, particularly in populist right-wing movements, who want to discredit people who have devoted their lives to science and devoted their lives to increasing the body of knowledge that drives the delivery of health care in this state and indeed around the world – people who disrespect evidence and who spread those conspiracy theories.
While I am on it, it would be remiss of me not to mention – I know I have the attention here of the member for Nepean, and that is excellent, because he was not here at that time – the rallies in the streets here in Melbourne, where various people campaigned against science, against evidence and against health and wellbeing. What is more, they erected effigies and playacted the hanging of our Premier. Do you know who was out there with them? Members of the Liberal Party. They were out on the streets. Members of the Liberal Party were out there on the steps of this Parliament House cheering on these conspiracy theorists, who were in absolute denial about COVID and the impact that it was having in our state and around the world. And do you know who suffered the most from COVID? Our healthcare workers, who went in on the front line when there was no vaccine and when there was very little knowledge. All they had between them and this raging virus that was killing people was PPE. We will always stand with our healthcare workers, and we respect their expertise.
I am delighted to be joined here at the table by the Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs, who shares my passion and now has responsibility for medical research. Here in Victoria we are one of the top three medical research destinations in the world. When you are talking medical research, there are three destinations: Melbourne, Boston and London.
Mathew Hilakari interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: I will take up the interjection: it is absolutely not by accident. It goes back to a decision that was taken by former Premier John Brumby, a Labor Premier, that Victoria, and Melbourne in particular, would be a world-class medical research destination. We are very privileged and honoured to have, once again here in Victoria, some of the best medical researchers in the world, people who devote themselves and their lives to the advancement of knowledge and to the study of viruses, bacteria, humans, medicine, drugs – you name it. They devote their lives to that. Yet when those on the other side stand on the front steps here with conspiracy theorists, they are laughing at all of those people across our medical research sector. They are saying those people do not matter, that they would rather stand on the steps of Parliament House and buy cheap votes from people who disrespect the work of those hardworking medical research professionals. I can see you are fascinated, member for Nepean. Maybe you should do a little bit of research into what was going on at that time. Back to our healthcare workers, it is well known that we have worked assiduously to invest in our healthcare workforce and to grow it. I mean, that is what we do, right? That is what Labor governments are here for, because we believe in strong public services – public services that meet the needs of all Victorians, no matter where they live, no matter their background, no matter where they are and no matter where they are from. We are very proud of the rate at which we have grown our healthcare workforce here in Victoria. As I said, by more than 50 per cent we have grown our workforce. Last year saw –
Sam Groth interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: It is a little bit hard for me – it is late – to concentrate while there are a lot of interjections from the member for Nepean.
We have grown our workforce. Last year saw the largest single growth in our workforce ever. It was around 6.7 per cent. The reason why our workforce is growing is because hardworking doctors, nurses, paramedics, allied healthcare practitioners and others want to come and work in Victoria. They want to work here because we have world-class health services. As I said, we have got a thriving medical research sector, but we have always respected our healthcare workers. I was very pleased to see our public hospitals reach agreement with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation only recently for a 28.4 per cent pay rise. This is really important, and I will tell you why: because when I was growing up – and I am sure there are others in the chamber – there were two occupations. The member for South-West Coast might fit into this categorisation. When I was growing up there were two occupations that young women pursued. One was nursing and the other was teaching. I became a teacher and the member for South-West Coast, as I understand, became a nurse. That is not an uncommon story, particularly, I might say, for girls from the country. As a consequence of that I know a lot of teachers, but I also know a lot of nurses, and I have always respected their work.
But I might say one of the things about nursing is that it was for a very long time, and still is, a highly feminised profession. As a consequence of that and because of the patriarchal system in which we live, that work has for too long been undervalued. When it was compared with work that was traditionally done by men, we know that women were just not being paid as they should have been. A decision was made early last year by the Fair Work Commission in relation in particular to aged care nursing. We decided to pre-empt that decision as it applied to nurses in our public healthcare system. Here in Victoria we decided that it was about time that we paid our nurses what they truly deserve.
That is why we are very proud to have reached that agreement with them. As members in this house will also know, we have worked with the nurses union, the ANMF, for whom we have a great deal of respect, which I might say is in contrast to those on the other side of the place, to deliver the Safe Patient Care (Nurse to Patient and Midwife to Patient Ratios) Act 2015. We introduced that and then amended it two times in order to implement safe patient-to-nurse and safe patient-to-midwife ratios in our hospitals. One of the drivers for introducing the act in the first instance, back in 2015 under former minister Jill Hennessy, was that in the four years that those on the other side were in government under the failed Baillieu–Napthine governments what we saw was that those Liberal governments attempted to bargain away the nurse-to-patient and midwife-to-patient ratios that existed in the enterprise agreements at that time. When were in government, again, under John Brumby and under Steve Bracks, we had enterprise bargaining agreements in place that had nurse-to-patient and midwife-to-patient ratios. The Liberals came in and tried to bargain them away, and we said to nurses, ‘We’re not going to let that happen to you again. We are going to legislate nurse-to-patient and midwife-to-patient ratios so that they are protected now and into the future from potential future Liberal governments,’ because that is the first thing that they will move on. They will move to take away the hard-won rights and conditions of working people, including our healthcare workers. Under our government we have worked to deliver an enterprise agreement that delivers a 28.4 per cent pay increase, and we have implemented safer patient care ratios for nurses and midwives. We have done that because we know that it delivers safer outcomes for patients. That is why it is called the safe patient care act.
The other thing that our ratios have done – and I am circling back now to when I was talking about how our workforce has grown – is that nurses are particularly attracted to come and work here in Victoria because of our safe patient care act. After the peak of COVID, when I was out visiting hospitals and we were experiencing significant workforce shortages, I had the pleasure of meeting nurses who had come to Australia, a number of them from Ireland, to work here in Victoria because we have the safe patient care act and ratios. They told me that; they were quite explicit about ratios. They also told me that they came to Victoria because here, in this state, nurses are respected. Indeed it was not long after meeting these Irish nurses that I had the good fortune at a dinner – the member for Malvern was at the dinner; it was with the Irish ambassador – to meet the Irish health minister. He said to me that one of his jobs in coming to visit Australia was to try and take some Irish nurses back with him. I said, ‘Well, bad luck. Until such time as you introduce safer patient care ratios, they won’t be going.’ We discussed the various merits of our differing health systems and the work that we have done deliberately here to send a very clear message to our nurses about the respect we have for them and the esteem in which we hold them.
It would be remiss of me, because the member for Melton is in the chamber, not to talk about our paramedics. As the former secretary of the ambulance union well knows, you can fight hard and you can make great achievements as a union leader when you have a Labor government. Just as readily, what you have achieved – the benefits and the rewards for hardworking, experienced paramedics – can be ripped away by Liberal governments. That is what the member for Melton experienced. He can tell you firsthand what it is like to be representing healthcare workers under a Liberal government, and the stories that he will tell, I am sure, will shock you. I hope he takes us to the former Minister for Health David Davis in the other place and the fake union that he established. That will be just as good as some of the fake ambulances that we have seen. Will I talk about fake patients? Possibly not because –
Members interjecting.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: Well, he is not he is not in the chamber, is he? So I will not talk about the fake patients and how that came to be. But I hope that the member for Melton takes us through the story of the fake ambulance paramedics union, because it is a whopper. It is a story of lies and deceit authored by Mr Davis in the other place. It is a good story. It is one to stay up for, I might suggest. Okay, so on our paramedics –
A member interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: Someone said I have run out of things to say. I am only getting started. I have got lots to talk about. Now, since we since we came to government, we have invested more than $2 billion into our ambulance services, of which we are very proud. Right now, the number of paramedics on our road has grown by more than 50 per cent.
Emma Kealy interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: Okay, I am going to take up this interjection in a moment. The member for Lowan has talked about outcomes, and I will come to that. I will talk to that in a moment, but I am talking about our healthcare workforce, and I have not stopped praising our paramedics yet. As I said, we have invested in them. Now we have got more on-road paramedics than at any time ever, and recently I was delighted that Ambulance Victoria and the Victorian Ambulance Union also reached an agreement through their enterprise bargaining negotiations. I have got to say that agreement had a particular focus on some of the wellbeing issues that we know our paramedics face with regard to the long hours that they work and the various pressures that they are under.
I am really delighted that as we work to implement that enterprise bargaining agreement – an EBA, I might say, that was resoundingly endorsed by our paramedics – we will do so now under the leadership of Andrew Crisp, the chair of Ambulance Victoria, who of course is highly regarded. A former emergency management commissioner, a senior leader – I think an assistant deputy commissioner – at Victoria Police, Andrew Crisp is the perfect person for the job of chair of the board. The Ambulance Victoria board has also appointed Mr Jordan Emery. Mr Emery currently is the CEO of Ambulance Tasmania, I might note, under a Liberal government, and he was formerly with New South Wales. Again I take it on good authority he is highly regarded in both those states for all the work that he has done, and I know that our hardworking paramedics are welcoming the commencement of these two highly regarded and well-recognised leaders at AV.
So we have backed our paramedics in with their new EBA. There are more of them on the road than ever before, and we have rolled out new ambulance stations right across the state. I cannot keep track of the number of ambulance stations that I have had the pleasure of visiting with members on this side of the chamber, and indeed I have been able to travel right across rural and regional Victoria to meet with paramedics and see the new accommodation that we are providing them. That has been a great pleasure. But the other thing – well, there are lots of things that we are doing in ambulance, so let me talk you through a few of them.
We have made a commitment to increase the number of MICA paramedics that are on the road, and I was delighted to meet with the largest group of MICA interns ever, only recently, who are hitting the road in rural and regional Victoria and will continue to deliver that specialist care. We have created the new role of paramedic practitioners. Paramedic practitioners will be hitting the road at the end of 2026. They have will have completed a masters of paramedicine. They will be highly qualified. The existing paramedics that have taken up this opportunity to study for masters degrees are some of the best of the best, and they will be delivering care at levels not seen before in our community in rural and regional Victoria. You have heard me talk about this before. We have been challenged by the difficulty in accessing general practice in rural and regional Victoria. One of the reasons it has been difficult to access GPs in rural and regional Victoria is the 10 years of neglect by the former federal Liberal government that failed to invest the university places that are needed in order to graduate doctors.
Emma Kealy interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: I can hear the member for Lowan over there interjecting; that would not surprise anyone. But I might say, in case she does not know, that universities, university places and the number of places that are available are in the remit of the Commonwealth government. Similarly, Medicare payment are in the remit of the Commonwealth government, and under the man who was voted the worst health minister of all time, Peter Dutton, we saw that with the Medicare rebate there was a freeze for six years. What we can see here –
Emma Kealy interjected.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Order!
Mary-Anne THOMAS: Thank you very much, Acting Speaker. What we can see here is a person who counts herself as a player on the other side of the chamber, but who has zero understanding of how the health system works here in –
Members interjecting.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: Oh, I know she was a CEO of Edenhope health service. Yes, I am well aware of that. I would expect that –
Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the minister is misleading the house. I was CEO of Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital, not Edenhope hospital – a hospital which no longer exists because she closed it.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Order! Member for Lowan, there is there is no point of order, as you know.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: As I said, one would have thought that the former CEO of Edenhope and district hospital would know that Medicare is funded by the Commonwealth and that medical places at university are also funded by the Commonwealth. There was a failure to invest in both of those things under the federal Liberal government, a federal Liberal government which I might say was once again resoundingly rejected only 10 days or so ago by the people of Victoria.
Members interjecting.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Order! It is late in the evening, but if I cannot hear the minister on her feet, then I suspect no-one else can. Minister, the call is yours, please continue. The minister will be heard in silence.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: Well, they have certainly woken up on the other side of the chamber, so I suppose that is a good thing.
I wanted to make the point again, in response to some interjections from the member for Lowan, our ambulance services faced unprecedented challenge during COVID, a time that I have already canvassed in my conversation. We know what we were doing during that time: we were protecting the health and safety of Victorians. We were here saving lives and we were standing by our healthcare workers while members like the member for South-West Coast – here she is – were out on the front steps cheering on the conspiracy theorists. That is what was happening. That is what she was doing. That is what was going on. The unprecedented demand that our health services were under was completely disrespected by those on the other side, but since that time, our government has been resolute in its commitment to continuing to build back from that time. It is why, as I have already outlined, we have implemented a range of initiatives in order to support our ambulance services, treat our paramedics with care and respect and implement safe and timely ambulance and emergency care standards that address the fact that the biggest impediment to getting our paramedics back on the road as quickly as possible is a system issue. It is about patient flow through our hospitals and the need that we have for our hospitals to really be focused on getting paramedics back on the road as soon as possible, and that is what is happening. And you know what, we are already seeing improvements right across the hospitals where the standards are being implemented. We are seeing the transfer times from ambulance to hospital reduced significantly.
These standards will work, and I will tell you why: it is because they have been developed by healthcare workers themselves. They have been developed by paramedics, by emergency department nurses and by our clinicians in our hospitals, because we listen to our healthcare workers. When they come forward with a good idea, we work to implement it. We respect their work, we value their work and we stand by them. And one thing that we will always do is consult with their industrial representatives. People in this chamber will remember that under the former Liberal government – this one was talking about performance before. Do you know what happened when Mr Davis was the health minister? Do you know what happened to ambulance response time data when he was the minister? It was not reported, it was hidden.
A member interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: No, there was no reporting. He just said, ‘Oh, here’s the data. These are the worst response times in history, so you know what I’ll do with it, I’ll hide it. I’ll make sure that no-one can see it.’ And that is exactly what he did. That is another story, I might say, that the member for Melton might have an opportunity to tell us a little bit more about. We will never do that. We are transparent when it comes to producing the data and to ensuring that people can see the hard work that we are all doing to ensure that Victorians can access world-class healthcare in our state.
In the few seconds that I have remaining I want to take the opportunity again to speak on behalf of those on this side of the house and send our regards and respect to healthcare workers right across this state.
Emma KEALY (Lowan) (23:14): What a delight to go after and speak after the Minister for Health. You would be amazed to think she had been the Minister for Health for more than 5 minutes given that rambling little collection, having a kick at the opposition, trying to say ‘ambulance’ a few times and ‘We love the workers’ and not taking any responsibility. The Labor government have been here, ruling this space in the health system for 10½ years. If you are concerned about what is happening in the health system today, and the Minister for Health has just outlined some of the problems in the system, she can look no further than the issues that she has governed over herself, which she has got ultimate responsibility for. The lesson that she was trying to outline today is nothing more than a farce. The fact that you have got a Minister for Health who has to refer to notes to understand how the health system works is perhaps the greatest indictment on the health system in Victoria today. It is little wonder that we have problems with ambulance ramping. It is a little wonder we have issues with the Triple Zero system.
What an interesting intersection we have today. I acknowledge in the gallery today members of the United Firefighters Union and other volunteers. I can see an SES shirt; there is also a Fire Rescue Victoria shirt. We can see that there are people standing up here for the debate that is happening in the other place, and which will soon come here, on a piece of legislation which is being hotly contested and includes aspects where we are being told we need to fix up core government services that the government already receives taxpayer money to deliver: Triple Zero, fire services and the SES – these fabulous volunteer-led services as well as paid member services. Yet the minister would not talk about that today. She would not talk about this great big new tax which is going to fund core government services. It means every single Victorian will pay the price for the government’s mismanagement. Households will have to pay twice as much in emergency services taxes. Farmers will have to pay about 170 per cent more
Anthony Cianflone: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, this is a motion that is about health and investments we are making to grow the health workforce – our nurses, our midwives, our doctors – and training our young people for healthcare careers. This is not a motion that is foreshadowing debate on a bill that is yet to come back before this chamber. I ask you to draw the member back to the motion.
Emma KEALY: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, this was a wideranging debate and the minister herself spoke about –
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Member for Lowan, I am ready to rule on the point of order. It has been a wideranging debate in the very limited amount of debate we have had to date – the minister was the first speaker – but the member for Lowan should make sure she is constrained to the motion.
Emma KEALY: It may come as a bit of education to government members opposite that when you need an ambulance you call Triple Zero. That is what I am talking about. This might come as a surprise to some Labor backbenchers. There are so many Victorians today that call Triple Zero because they have got a loved one who is unresponsive next to them, and they cannot get an answer. That is part of what the minister should be handling. It is something she has failed to do, and she is paid a premium to do that. These are Triple Zero services. That is part of what we are being sold as why the government needs to put this great big new tax on every single Victorian in this state. It is to fund a budget black hole, and we know it will not end up where we are being told it will end up. It is Victorians again who will have to pay the price for Labor’s mismanagement of, in this instance, Victoria’s health system. Do you know how Victorians pay the price? I do not know if any member of the Labor government opposite has ever sat down with a family member who has had a loved one die beside them while they have been waiting for Triple Zero –
Members interjecting.
Emma KEALY: This is not a joke. It is very disappointing to hear Labor backbenchers starting to laugh at this matter. It is extremely disturbing to hear Labor members laugh at a situation where people are on the phone waiting for somebody to answer and seeing their loved ones dying, seeing the last stages of their lives, not knowing when an ambulance will arrive. This is something that has certainly happened in Hamilton, and I have sat with family members through this. I cannot believe that the Labor members in this chamber are willing to make a joke out of this. I think it is a reflection upon every Labor backbencher who is now looking at having to win their seat in different ways. You have to face your own conscience if you think that it is a laughing matter that Victorians today cannot get an ambulance. I think that that is a reflection on you, and you do not deserve to be re-elected. You have got people who manage to get in an ambulance and end up stuck in the ambulance on the hospital ramp and do not even get through the doors. I hope that never happens to your family. We are hearing more frequently of people on stretchers in the corridors of emergency departments who cannot find a bed and who are dying in these corridors some days after they were admitted to hospital. I hope that never happens to you. I hope you never have to listen to constituents who have gone through that situation, because it breaks my heart. I have had to go through that, and I think that it is something that is extraordinarily serious, because they are lives. People deserve dignity.
I am very sensitive to this today because I have lost three good friends in the last three days. I think that we need to make sure that we always look at why we are elected to this place. We can make jokes and grandstand, and you can try and bicker and say, ‘You’re right’, ‘You’re wrong’ or whatever. But we support health workers because they do save lives, and they deserve the resources to make sure that they can do their job well. Members of Fire Rescue Victoria, the CFA volunteers, the SES volunteers and Forest Fire Management, who put in so much time and effort at the Grampians and Little Desert bushfires over summer, are Victorians who give their best to try and make sure that our state is well looked after. They do it because they love it. They do it because they are proud of what they do. They do it because they want to make a difference. That is what should inspire each and every one of us in this place. We should want to make a difference every single time we get up in this chamber and say something, because it does mean something to Victorians. We cannot just play petty politics all the time and not realise that there is a consequence to the action or inaction of government. There is a consequence when you do put huge new taxes on people who cannot afford it.
My electorate is a heavily farming-dominated electorate. It is 20 per cent of the state; it is largely filled with national parks and farms. We are suffering a horrific drought. I learned a few hours ago that a good friend, someone I highly respect, had taken his own life. This drought is massive, and late today, after desperately calling for and needing drought relief for so many farmers, we see somehow this off-selling that they will get some drought relief tomorrow as part of this great big new tax. We have got a situation where farmers in drought are going to have a big new tax forced upon them. They will have to pay every year, no matter whether it is a productive year or not. They could have the best season they have ever had, with bumper crops, the best prices and huge income. They will pay the same amount that year as they will in a year like this, where there is no feed for stock. There is no feed in Victoria and there is none in most of New South Wales. The South Australian government have offered a generous rebate, which means that farmers have been able to secure fodder and they have better support. There is fodder over in Western Australia. But we have got fodder prices that are going from $300 a tonne to $465 a tonne in just three weeks. It is a massive increase, and it is simply unaffordable.
Belinda Wilson: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Lowan is talking about a very irrelevant situation that is not actually what we are talking about.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Member for Narre Warren North, what is your point of order?
Belinda Wilson: Relevance – we are talking about a health motion.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): There is no point of order.
Emma KEALY: There are significant increases in input costs for farms, and this has a mental health impact. You can screw your face up, member for Narre Warren North, and just say, ‘Well, why is that?’ If you are facing a situation where your only outcomes are either to destock and lose all your genetic material and then have nothing – to be an intergenerational farmer who has lost everything and who has the weight of all your farming predecessors before you because you have lost that genetic stock – or not be able to afford anything so you lose your home, you lose your farm, you lose your family, you have a marriage breakdown and you lose everything, there are some people who think that this world would be a better place without them, and that is why it is a health issue, member for Narre Warren North. That is why it is a bloody health issue, because it has an impact on their mental health, and they are committing suicide. As I said, my friend committed suicide two days ago and was found today. That is why it is a health issue and that is why it is related to this motion, because my people do not have any access to mental health support at this point in time. There is no mental health support.
As part of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, it was promised by the Andrews Labor government and then the Allan Labor government that they would deliver on all the recommendations, yet we still do not have a mental health local in our local area. We have got suicides happening in our area, and there is no way to do that. Do you know the reason we were given by the minister in last year’s budget for why we would not get mental health locals? It was because there was no workforce. This comes back to the cut and thrust of exactly this motion. This motion is about the health workforce. This motion goes to the core. It is about the health workforce. The mental health workforce element from the royal commission’s recommendations has been moved into the health workforce department. It fits exactly within that and yet it has been scrapped. We are being told as an excuse that we are not progressing with mental health reform because we have not got a mental health workforce, yet we are in this situation where they have scrapped the mental health workforce strategy. It was launched by Minister Merlino, who was the last minister who actually did something about the mental health reforms, back in 2021. If you bother to look at the mental health workforce strategy, it says it must be reviewed every two years. It ran out in 2024 and has never been reviewed. Not only was it not reviewed in 2023, it is now out of date.
We do not have a mental health workforce strategy, and the excuse given by the Minister for Mental Health in the other place is the reason we cannot keep going with the mental health royal commission recommendations and the implementation of them is we do not have a mental health workforce. Guess what, it is not rocket science. Update your bloody strategy and get on with training more people. Get on with supervising and providing more places. Get on with making sure that there are people who are able to turn to mental health, to get their training, to get their supervision and to be able to do it in Victoria, so that Victoria is a place of choice for mental health workers. We are very, very fortunate at the moment. The New South Wales mental health system is in collapse, so for the first time since the royal commission handed down its recommendations we are getting more people applying for jobs in Victoria. This is the first time that this has happened, but it is a fluke. It is because of the New South Wales collapse.
Members interjecting.
Emma KEALY: Acting Speaker, I find the interjections by the Labor backbenchers inappropriate. I am getting told ‘Bring it on.’
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): I do not need guidance from the floor. Member for Lowan, it has been a debate that has been characterised by a fair bit of interjection from across the house, so I would suggest that we carry on. Everybody in the chamber can desist from interjections, which are of course disorderly.
Emma KEALY: I have no problem speaking to mental health or the healthcare sector. I worked in the healthcare sector. It was my career before politics. I had a career before politics, unlike many of the people who sit opposite me. I worked hard. I went to uni. I got a bachelor of biomedical science. I worked in the Northern Territory with Indigenous people very frequently. I worked in Alice Springs, and I worked in Darwin. I came back to Melbourne and worked in pathology. I was actually the CEO of a hospital for five years before I got on with coming into this place. I am very proud to sit next to a former nurse who knows very, very well what she is doing and the experience of working within the health system. We also have Ms Crozier in the other place, another former nurse, and I acknowledge the member for Melton, whom I worked with and I have acknowledged before, because we signed off, together with Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital and Ambulance Victoria, on the first MOU –
Steve McGhie: I didn’t think I had a career, going by what you said earlier.
Emma KEALY: No, not at all. We signed off on the first MOU to support paramedics to provide services and support for people in Edenhope hospital when a doctor was not available.
The minister tried to tell me over the table that she has done so much to improve outcomes in hospitals across the state. I can tell you that is certainly not the case in my electorate of Lowan and in many corners of this state. In fact it is disappointing to me. I went back and actually went through one of the old annual reports that we published when I was CEO at that health service. It is so interesting to go back to that time, because it was a time that really did fill my cup in that it was great to be able to improve health outcomes for local people. I came from that town. I grew up in Edenhope – sixth generation there. It is the hospital I was born in, 32 years before I was appointed as CEO. For me it was great that we could train up nursing staff to be able to do some pathology testing and do some X-rays. It took pressure off the paramedics so people would not have to travel an hour to Horsham to have those tests done to be given the all clear. We were able to establish the first purpose-built medical clinic in Edenhope. We attracted the first female GP. We had the most amazing range of visiting services. We did not have enough work to support everybody. We would have liked to have full-time workers, but we had visiting physiotherapists, podiatrists, a social worker and a geriatrician. We also had a dentist that was based there a couple of days a week. We had a fantastic community health program. It really was a credit to the people that worked there. At the end of the day, and I am not pumping it up – I know we like to say it is the CEO, but it was not me – it was the bloody brilliant staff that we had. I would like to pay credit to Meredith Finnigan, as the director of nursing, and also Andrew Saunders, who was the director of community services at that time. We worked with every single staff member and treated everybody as equal, because everybody contributed in an amazing way to make sure that local people got health care.
I look back at what were delivering 11 years ago, and I look at the range of services that are there now. Speaking to people whom I am lifelong friends with and I have known my whole life, it is really, really hard to see how that service has been absolutely spun out. This is because of the merger with Ballarat under this idea of Grampians Health. Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital does not exist anymore. It has been written off in history.
A member interjected.
Emma KEALY: It was buggered by the Labor government, that is exactly right. The hospital is still there, absolutely, but their services have shrunk so much, which has impacted on local jobs. It impacts the ability of people to get access to high-quality health care locally. That has an impact on their health outcomes. It is a very simple formula. It has been catastrophic for that community. It is a small community of just a thousand people. The hospital is the biggest employer. It is a very, very important organisation in terms of providing support. The person who is in charge of finance probably is also the treasurer of the football–netball club, because they have got that knowledge and experience, or there is governance experience which is shared through the community as well. But what we have seen is this whittling down by the Labor government so that the services and the money are centralised into Ballarat, and it has just filled a massive budget black hole. Labor have proven they have not been able to manage what happens, particularly in country hospitals. We are seeing that happen in Horsham; it has just been devastating to speak to staff who work in the Horsham hospital. It does not matter whether they are nurses, whether they work in allied health, whether they work in linen services or whether they work in the kitchen or the maintenance department.
Sadly, in those latter departments in particular there are just not many people left, because it has all been centralised into Melbourne. The linen service is on its way to closing. These are people who are the salt of the earth, who work so hard. They are proud of their jobs. They have been in those jobs for years and years. That linen service is being closed, and that is millions of dollars out of our local economy in Horsham being pushed into Ballarat. We are seeing kitchen services now closing in Horsham and being relocated to Ballarat. We are seeing more and more patients having to receive services in Ballarat because the doctors or the specialists are not coming out to Horsham anymore, because of the travel time. It eats into the productivity and eats into the service, and that puts more pressure on everybody who works in our health system in the local community. People are not as well, so there are more calls to paramedics, who have to come out and are under pressure because their numbers have not been increased locally.
Our MICA paramedics are at critically low levels. I think there is only one MICA paramedic from Ballarat all the way through to the border, and they see horrific instances. They see kids who are in awful positions. They see horrific trauma that they have to be involved in, and there is no time out from that. We had a horrific situation when one of our MICA paramedics took his own life a couple of years ago. He was a brilliant bloke, but staffing shortages meant that he was just burnt out. You cannot have one side of the story and ignore the other part. If someone losing their own life by their own hand is not enough to say, ‘You know what, we can do better,’ then I do not know what is.
You see it with the fire service as well. There are too many people in all emergency services who take their own lives. It has to stop, and the government has the power and is in the position to do that. You have got the funding to do that and you have got the power to do that. We have got a suicide intervention and reduction strategy. Again, it was released back in 2016, and it had an aspirational target to halve the suicide rate in Victoria within 10 years. We are now at rates that are higher than ever. It is terrible to see, and it is heartbreaking for the colleagues who see that and who find the bodies. It is horrifying for family and friends who have lost a loved one. It is horrifying for children who are left behind. It is horrifying for the entire community, and it is felt for a very, very, very long time.
This is why it is important that the government gets decisions right. I know this bill looks like it is coming back from the upper house to the Legislative Assembly right now. It will be a massive cost impost to rural communities. It is going to take millions of dollars out of our communities in the same way that the Grampians Health merger has and what is on the table now around the merger between Casterton Memorial Hospital and Western District Health Service in the south of my electorate. We simply cannot afford to take more and more money out of country Victoria, funnel it into a big black hole in Melbourne and never see anything come out. It is to the detriment of the state.
It has impacts at the most basic level on our gross domestic product, because we reduce our productivity if we do not support regional communities. Agriculture delivers so much to the state’s economy. It creates the wealth and the tax that the government uses to spend to provide services for everyone in Victoria. But if we have health mergers that pull jobs and money and centralise it into the bigger cities like Melbourne, if we then have these massive taxes – another one today, which is going to raise over $1 billion in its first year alone – and if we are predominantly taking money out of regional communities and out of regional LGAs, that is going to have an impact on our local people. It means that we have less shops locally. It means we have less jobs locally. It means that it is more likely that those things we do to keep us mentally and physically healthy – like playing footy or netball, playing a musical instrument or going out with our mates – dissipate because we do not have enough people to support the clubs. We do not have enough people to have that sense of community. These are impacts which are massive.
I do not believe that the Allan Labor government understands the implications of having a massive tax which is focused on taking money from farms. It is a surrogate land tax. I do not think you have thought through what the implications are. I also do not think that you understand what the implications will be on your vote, and that should be of great concern to you. You may not have had the opportunity to look through social media, but my social media – and it is being reported everywhere – is filled with feeds of people, volunteers, taking the batteries out of their pagers. They are throwing away their CFA uniforms. They feel absolutely disregarded and disrespected by the Allan Labor government. It is disgraceful after the summer that I have seen, with volunteers and paid firefighters – Forest Fire Management Victoria have been out there the whole time, Fire Rescue Victoria were here today – and the SES. There are so many people out there. They were there from the start of December to mid-February fighting fires, yet they are the ones that you are going to penalise the most with this tax. It is the highest form of disregard and dishonour, and it is shameful that a Labor government that says it stands for workers is the one that is inflicting this great big tax.
It will play out at the next election. We are seeing that strongly. People see through what has happened today. It will certainly play out next Tuesday, when I understand there will be another massive rally on the steps of Parliament. This is the start of what will be, I think, a very, very poor decision. We know that Labor cannot manage money, but Victorians are sick of having to pay the price. They want to make sure that Labor pays the price for its own problems and its own mismanagement; for wasting money; for trying to gloss over the real issues that are happening in our community; for trying to say that there is no problem with the workforce in health care and in mental health care that we are seeing in this motion today; for trying to gloss over the fact we have serious issues when it comes to mental health in our emergency service workers; and for trying to gloss over the fact that putting a huge tax on people who are facing one of the worst droughts of their lifetime will affect their mental health and their physical health, not to mention the health of our country communities.
I feel like this has nearly turned into a grievance more than a motion. But I do very much appreciate that I was able to get all of that on the record because it has been a tough week for me personally, as I said. It is hard when people that you know and love are no longer with you when you thought they would be. It galls me that the Minister for Health thinks she is doing a great job when that is happening on her watch. Surely you cannot sleep at night when that is happening. Surely you think, ‘I could do a bit better. I can do better.’ It is not a time for gloating. It is a time to be a bit humble and say, ‘You know what, maybe we got some things wrong and we need to do things differently.’ Maybe it is time to stand up and say, ‘I’m going to vote no to this great big tax from the Labor government. I’m going to actually stand up for the community that elected me to be here. I’m going to do what is right, and I’m going to vote down –
The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Order! I remind the member on her feet not to pre-empt debate on a subsequent item on the business program and to constrain her remarks to this motion.
Emma KEALY: This has been a very interesting motion to debate, but I am very pleased that I have been part of it because it shows Labor’s true colours. It really does go to the heart of scoffing at suicide, scoffing at people who are dying in our healthcare system and scoffing at people who are waiting for an ambulance in pain and watching their loved ones die. That is nothing to scoff over, and it is nothing to be proud of. If you are proud of that, then shame on you, shame on your own conscience, and I hope that your electors hold you to account at the next election.
Danny PEARSON (Essendon – Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs, Minister for Finance) (23:44): I move:
That the debate be now adjourned.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.