Wednesday, 12 August 2026

 Emma KEALY (Lowan) (15:57): Acting Speaker O’Keeffe, it is wonderful to see you in the chair again. Thank you very much for your service to the Parliament. It has been outstanding service, member for Shepparton, and it is wonderful to see you challenge yourself and become an Acting Speaker over this period. Congratulations. You have served your community well, and I know you will continue to do so beyond your time in this place.

I rise today to speak on the Safe Patient Care (Nurse to Patient and Midwife to Patient Ratios) Amendment Bill 2026. While this will be adjourned off in a couple of minutes for the grievance debate, I would like to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge all of the health workers within our health system. It is an incredibly challenging role. People are time-poor, having to make decisions. They are spreading themselves thin, but at every single opportunity our healthcare workers and all the other workers within the health system are doing their utmost to make sure that people are receiving the highest quality of care, that their outcome is positive and that they are comfortable. They go home at night knowing that they have made a difference in their community.

Having worked within the health sector in my career before I entered Parliament, I certainly have seen firsthand some of the really challenging situations that healthcare workers are faced with each and every day, whether it is around clinical reasons and medical reasons and having to make difficult decisions, whether it is about caring for a loved one or whether it is putting themselves and their safety on the line, particularly with workplace violence escalating in our hospitals. I acknowledge the work of our fine healthcare workers, and I do thank them for each and every minute that they spend looking after people in the public hospital system, in the private system and also in volunteer roles. Often that continues beyond employment and they turn into the family carers as well. It is an outstanding contribution that our health workers give to the community, and I do commend them for that.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.