Wednesday, 9 February 2022

Motions

Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:00): I rise to speak to my motion 699. It is an important motion, and I hope all members of this house will support it, because of what has been happening over not just the past few weeks and months but the past few years. I move:

That this house:

(1) expresses its serious concern at the:

(a) inadequate operation of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority’s (ESTA) 000 service and the failure of ESTA to maintain acceptable response times;

(b) worrying number of cases where lives have been put at risk by the extraordinary time delays in responding to calls in country Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne;

(c) failure to promptly dispatch an ambulance in a timely way;

(d) cases that have come to public notice where lives have been lost through what appears to be delayed emergency services dispatch;

(e) resources provided by the government to ESTA and Ambulance Victoria and the consequent delays in response times; and—

this is an important part of the motion—

(2) respectfully requests that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of ESTA and the interaction between ESTA and Ambulance Victoria.

I could have put more points into this motion, but it is clear that what I am trying to say here is that we know that ESTA has been plagued with problems. We only have to look at the reports that have come out in the last couple of months. I have been talking about this for many months. I have put questions in the house. I am pleased that the Minister for Emergency Services is in the house. Yesterday I put forward a question about the 43 staff that were to be provided by February, and the minister’s response was that some of them were still in training: 16 were in the dispatch centre I think—or 13. I might have the numbers a little bit skewed, but nevertheless they are not all in place. I think the point is that it is February and they are not all in place. By the end of the month they will hopefully be in place. This is way too late because of the impact on Victorians.

As we know and as we have seen, the latest data just demonstrates the delayed response times, but importantly it is the stories from Victorians that really point out what is going on. Just a few weeks ago a damning article in the Age spoke about the real impacts on Victorians but also the absolute crisis that is in our emergency services response—the 000 program. It has been acknowledged even at a federal level, where it has been said that the faults and problems here in Victoria are having an impact right around the country. A federal minister has said that. He wrote to the minister last year about the concerns, saying that it is having a ricochet impact right across the nation and through the other services that 000 provides.

In this article that I referred to, about 000, it says seven out of 10 callers are left waiting. It just highlights, as I said, seven out of 10 calls not being answered on time during some shifts and the deaths or serious injuries of up to a dozen people in recent months suspected to be linked to delays in answering calls—a dozen people dying because they cannot get that care response. Mr Davis yesterday spoke of the tragic case of Nick Panagiotopoulos, who had to wait 25 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Of course it is a terribly sad situation and that was a very sad circumstance, but there have been other cases. A child in Bendigo died. These are real people, real Victorians. These are not just numbers and statistics, they are people who are losing their lives because of the failures of the system.

The article I referred to a few minutes ago states that there are senior people within the system that say there have been so many problems within ESTA for a long time—for years in fact—and it has highlighted what they say is a longstanding failure of ESTA to build a surge-resilient workforce. I have been talking about surge capacity within the health system and within these systems for years in this place—talking about, ‘Where is the surge capacity?’. And I have been speaking about the ability to plan and prepare for what is happening and what has happened over the last few weeks, particularly with the omicron wave. Of course the first case of that was detected in Victoria in early December, and the government was telling us, ‘Expect cases to rise’. Well, they have known about this and yet they have failed to put in place the adequate resourcing, whether it is within the 000 service, ESTA, whether it is in Ambulance Victoria or whether it is in our health system or community health. Right across the system this government has continued to fail to prepare to enable us to be able to deal with this crisis despite the fact that the Premier and the then Minister for Health said, ‘We have the surge capacity. We are ready to deal with this’ back in March 2020. That was two years ago, and yet we are in this situation where our state is absolutely on its knees. Whether it is the mental health crisis, whether it is the health crisis, whether it is the economic crisis, whether it is the social crisis that has absolutely driven this state to despair, this is because of the government’s lack of planning and preparation.

I am not going to go over old ground about what has happened previously. I want to stick to the important issues around this motion because these cases are worrying. When you have got the numbers that have been linked—the number of people that have died because of the failure of the service to be able to respond—this has to be looked at seriously. It cannot be brushed off by the government saying, ‘We’re dealing with it. We’re putting in more resources’. This should have been done. It should have been done not just in the last few months but years ago. This is years of underinvestment. The government cannot hide behind COVID as the excuse, saying, ‘Well, COVID has caused all of this’, because as we know the health system was under huge stress before COVID, and COVID has really tipped it over.

This article, which again I am going to refer to because it has actually got some relevant points about where it is at, says there are cases in the Coroners Court being investigated and that:

A senior health source said they were aware of eight deaths and … serious events since October.

What has happened since October has also been damning because of what has occurred in the last few weeks. I know that because my office has been inundated by people who are talking about their experience, what they cannot receive within our health system. This is again a damning indictment on this government’s administration and ability to respond to COVID but more importantly its ability to properly plan and prepare. It goes to the heart of that.

Why should we be surprised that there are so many issues when of course the ICT projects—again, botched 000 upgrades—have put this system under more pressure? This government botches ICT projects all the time. Whether it is HealthSMART or Myki—now this—there were so many issues around the botched projects. It is extraordinary how they just cannot get anything right. These failures are costing people’s lives. There is no doubt about it. These ICT projects were to improve response times, and being hampered by the blowouts and delays has really had a massive impact on the ability of these services to operate.

Now, I know that there have been many other cases where Victorians’ lives have sadly been lost because of a delay in response, but when you see the latest data, in the last 12 months the minutes it takes for an ambulance to respond, for our 000 to respond, it is really damning. Fifteen minutes to be able to get through to 000 to get someone to dispatch an ambulance demonstrates the extent. Now, it was the Premier in 2014 that said every second counts. Well, yes, it does, Premier, and when you are talking about minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, that is 1800 seconds. So when you have got someone hanging on the line desperate to get through to a 000 operator to get an ambulance, when their child is choking, when their loved one is having a heart attack or when their wife is bleeding, it is alarming and it is frightening for those people.

As one person put it, Mr Withington, who said how traumatic an experience it was:

I no longer go around with the confidence that if we need an ambulance … we will be able to contact one. That is an awful feeling to have with you all the time, particularly as you get older and you’re dealing with health issues more regularly. It’s quite disgraceful.

He said this back in December after his wife, as I said, had a very serious injury and they could not get an ambulance. She was bleeding profusely.

As we know, the delays in elective surgery are having a major impact on people’s worsening health conditions, so of course people as their health conditions worsen will require 000 response for an ambulance when they are in these dire situations. When you have got people very, very sick, when you have got people with heart conditions who cannot get their heart valve replaced because of the bans on elective surgery, these are causing more emergency responses to be requested. Now, the government says if it is not an emergency—and I totally agree with it—go to the GP or ring Nurse-on-Call. But you cannot get through to Nurse-on-Call either. It is hours. One woman told me 6 hours; she just could not get through. Now, if you are going to say that, put the resources in place so that people can get the support that they need.

These issues are just so damning. The government has failed in every respect, and I know that so many people are now worried about what is actually happening, that the response from the government is too little, too late. They can talk about the money they have put in. That is not dealing with the crisis that is here. It is too late. You cannot fix these problems by just saying ‘We’re writing a blank cheque’ when you have had years to prepare for this and you have not done it properly. People have died. People have died because of the lack of planning and preparation, and that is why, in my last few moments that I have, we do request that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of ESTA and the interaction. They have done it before. The Auditor-General’s report came out in March 2015. He was looking at services at that time including police, firefighters and ambulance, and there were issues that he highlighted with ambulance response times then. Seven years on we are still in this situation, but it is a lot, lot worse. And if the government argues, ‘Well, we’ve got Graham Ashton looking at this and we’ve got others looking at it’, we need an independent person. With all due respect, Graham Ashton was the former Chief Commissioner of Police, and he has been linked to the emergency services. He understands this, because he was part of that review—

Ms Symes: Doesn’t that make him perfect?

Ms CROZIER: No. That is exactly the point. We want true independence.

Members interjecting.

Ms CROZIER: No, it is not a reflection on Mr Ashton. The government argues it is a reflection on Mr Ashton; it is not. It is because of his previous position that he has held in police. He knows this. We need to have somebody like the Auditor-General looking at this.

Ms Symes interjected.

Ms CROZIER: I take it from the government that they are not going to support my motion. I would urge the government to support my motion to have the true independence of the Auditor-General so that Mr Ashton and others who have been involved in the emergency response—

Ms Terpstra interjected.

Ms CROZIER: It is not a disgrace. It is actually—

Ms Terpstra interjected.

Ms CROZIER: I am not going to take that. I am not casting aspersions on Mr Ashton. I am saying that the independence of the Auditor-General will give this review the absolute ability to look at that, because Mr Ashton was involved in the previous review with the previous Auditor-General, so he knows. So I say, again, I urge the government not to cover up again. We are sick of the cover-up. We are sick of the media management. We are sick of the PR. We are sick of the spin. We want some true independence and some truth about the emergency services here, because people have died. Too many Victorians have sadly died because of the lack of response and the failures of this government to be able to prepare and plan properly. I say, again, this is an important motion. It goes to the heart of the safety of our Victorian citizens. They deserve to know the answers, and I request that all members support this motion.

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (10:16): It is an important motion; I do not take that away from Ms Crozier. It is a topic that we have had a few conversations about in the chamber, so this is a good opportunity to get some more detail, I guess, on the record, because it is often difficult to get the extent of the work and the complicated workplace that these important people work in on the record in detail in such a short time. So hopefully I have the opportunity to do that a little bit this morning.

It is not the government’s intention to support this motion, not because it is not important but because it is misguided and it is in no way going to provide any benefit to the service or to the public. As I said, I welcome the conversations, but I do not welcome the politicisation of this important issue. I want to put on the record my gratitude for the amazing staff at ESTA. I have done this many times; they are amazing. Coming to the role of Minister for Emergency Services I knew there were fire trucks and the people in orange. I was used to that even in my work as a local member. And I knew that people answered 000, but then I went out there and talked to them about the diversity of the role, the stress of that role, the 24/7 requirements of it. It is an incredibly complex, stressful job, and I think we need to celebrate them as much as we do our people in uniforms—our firefighters, our nurses and our SES volunteers, for example. They are heroes, and I really do want to thank them for their efforts and their continued efforts to ensure that Victorians get the service from ESTA that they deserve.

I do want to take the opportunity to inform the house of the many ways that our government is supporting this workforce during a period of unprecedented demand. We know that ESTA provides a vital service to the community and the employees dedicate themselves to keeping Victorians safe day in, day out. The staff at ESTA are wonderful people. They do this job because of how rewarding it is, how much they care and how much they know they can help people. I spoke to Sam when I was out their recently—they let me patch in and listen when 000 refers the calls to the ambulance call takers—and she said she has been there four years. She used to be a hairdresser, and she said, ‘Look, I liked being a hairdresser. I got to chat to people. It was good, but it was nowhere near as rewarding as knowing that I am helping people in dire need’. That is pretty amazing, and she was a pretty good example of most of the staff out there and the reason they do this job.

It is true to say that like the rest of the health system, and indeed health systems across the globe, ESTA has come under significant pressure as a result of the pandemic. It has seen call volumes spike across the country, and ESTA has exceeded previous records regularly—often more on a given day than during the thunderstorm asthma event of 2016. I am sure people recall the impact that had on the system. The daily average number of ambulance calls in October 2020 was 2200. The current COVID-19 omicron outbreak has massively increased this demand, with daily average ambulance calls through December and January nearing 4000. Facing this huge surge in calls, we have been providing extra funding and have supported a number of initiatives to help ESTA’s service delivery.

You have heard me speak regularly about the investment of 43 new FTE to significantly boost the call-taking capacity. All these positions are either on board or about to finish their training right now, including 13 new call-taking positions and 16 ambulances dispatchers. What it would be useful probably to understand as well is that this is 43 FTE; this is not actually 43 people. It is much more than that, because within the workplace of ESTA if you are a call taker it is sometimes an advancement to go on to the ambulance dispatch team, which is a team that is highly trained and experienced in giving advice and support to those people while they are waiting for an ambulance. A lot of the people transition through, so when we say we have got 43 new positions a lot of the people moved around, which meant you were actually recruiting more and more people up to, I think, more than 50 to actually get to those 43 new positions that we funded.

Obviously with attrition, as in any workplace, you are continually filling places. So I am proud to say that last week there were 21 new ambulance call takers in training at ESTA, and there are more to come. We have filled the training capacities until July, and we will continue those efforts and continue to keep those important people rolling out.

We have recently provided $27.5 million. That was outside of the budget process. That was from negotiations between me and the Treasurer to ensure that we could get some funds into ESTA immediately to allow them to train even more call takers, and as I said, this will result in more staff, more quickly, coming onto the floor. But it is also important to note that many of these call takers have to have the specific training. You cannot just pull someone from the street and say, ‘Hey, answer the phone and dispatch an ambulance’.

As I said, it has been great to get out to ESTA and listen to the people and patch in on some of the really stressful calls and just see the care and expertise that they put into this role. Of course ESTA and I as minister acknowledge that delays for the public in getting calls answered are unacceptable, and we are working very, very hard to ensure that we have improvements in this space. As I said, we have got new staff, new people in training, and we are also looking at a series of other options in terms of the calls being made quicker, surge capacity from interstate and a range of issues that I think I have gone through several times in this case.

I think the concerning part of Ms Crozier’s motion for me is asking the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office to come in and do a review. I took offence and I think probably Mr Ashton would take offence at Ms Crozier’s aspersions on his ability to conduct an independent review of this organisation. Bringing his expertise in the emergency management framework to this is going to be invaluable. We also have the inspector-general for emergency management maintaining oversight of ESTA, and they can conduct reviews when deemed appropriate.

This is an organisation that has new management. Stephen Leane is acting CEO. He is doing a great job. He has brought in some further expertise from Emergency Management Victoria. If you think about an organisation that is very focused on improving, they get calls from me asking, ‘How are you going?’ and they get calls from Graham Ashton asking, ‘How are you going? Can you participate in a review?’. Management are continually asking them questions. You have got the Coroners Court, which they have to participate in. My big concern is that when I am confident the management have got practices and resources and funding in place to make improvements, the more people that are asking them, ‘How are you going?’, the more it distracts them from actually getting on with these important reforms. So to say that there needs to be another investigation into an organisation that I think has substantial oversight is actually going to be quite damaging and goes against the intention of Ms Crozier’s motion, which is to bring about improvements. I think we should wait for Mr Ashton’s review, which will be helpful.

But that is not to say that we have not been getting on with the job. I have assured families and I have assured ESTA that, along with management, all of the initiatives that we are bringing into place are not waiting for people to have a report to tell us to do so. We are getting on with the job, and we will only continue to improve. We do not need further political frustration.

I think one of the other points that is important for me to note is that putting on the record and using victims to make political points is very fraught and you have to be very careful. Saying that there is a cause of death because you suspect there is is doing no service to victims. I will reflect on a recent email I got from a federal coalition MP who wrote to me cc’ing the son of a father who had passed away, complaining about ESTA’s inability to dispatch. It was not ESTA’s issue. I was not going to go and have an argument about whose fault it was that there was a contributing factor to this death, but to get a political email cc’ing the family saying, ‘How dare your agency, Minister, cause this death?’ was outrageous. This is the type of questioning that is starting to filter in here, and I would urge caution in this regard. When I speak to family members, many of them tell me they do not want their cases articulated and bandied around in this chamber, so I would caution about that. And when they do want their stories told, absolutely, that gives us an opportunity. To have the real-life experiences of the impacts of these things is what drives me to make improvements, so of course I want to hear their stories, but you have to be careful about how you use them, and if you use them for political gain, I think you should have a good, hard look at yourself.

As I have said, this is an important motion. There are lots of things Ms Crozier said that I agree with. I am absolutely focused on improvements here, but we cannot support this motion because, as with the last motion, bringing in yet another review of this organisation is not going to provide any benefit to Victorians, and that is what I am focused on.

Mr BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (10:26): I rise to speak on this motion. It was actually interesting listening to the Attorney-General. I agreed with a lot of what she said. Having said that, I still am supporting this. I am also going to bring some real-life experience in this, because when I finished in the police force on 1 January 2000, shortly thereafter I went to work for the predecessor to ESTA, being Intergraph, as a police call taker and a police dispatcher. Also my wife had been a fairly long term ambulance call taker and dispatcher when I met her.

We talk about things that you do not expect to see in here. Even for someone that had been a police officer for four or so years, you pick up the phone and—I did not hear it, but thankfully they play these things to you so you know what you are in for—you hear someone being murdered or someone dying in a car accident, because particularly in this day and age of mobile phones people will call you from all sorts of places. The people at ESTA, from the call takers to the dispatchers, deal with things that no normal people should ever have to. It is a credit to them that they can do it with as few problems as we get, and I think that is the thing. There is always time for review. I believe ex-commissioner Ashton is doing one, and I do not particularly see a great problem with asking the Auditor-General to examine this because as time goes on things change, people get things wrong and you need to keep looking at it. You need to keep on reviewing what is going on. It is one of those things.

I was listening to the Attorney-General talking about the number of FTEs and things like that, and I have also heard some questioning from the opposition, ongoing questioning about when people are going to be available, when they are going to be taking calls and dispatching and things like that. One of the things that is not really mentioned a lot is that there is a fairly large drop-off in ability to continue for a lot of people. They can take a phone call, write some stuff in there, but they cannot deal with the violence on the phone. They cannot deal with—let us just call it the ‘death and destruction’. It takes a special kind of person, and then that person has to be taught the system, particularly with the ambulances. I do not know if they are still using what they call ProQA. It is a very structured call-taking thing. The police call taking was fairly easy for me, having been a police officer. It was just more or less stepping into another part of the job, but with the ambulances they have a very structured thing and flow charts—inside the software of course—and it drives them to a certain outcome, whether it is a priority zero, 1, 2 or possibly 3. Things change. I am not casting aspersions about what has happened recently, but the way I see this, it is another opportunity to keep on looking at these things.

I do believe it can never be said enough of emergency services people—and I include ESTA people in that—that they do a tough job. I still do not think many people, if any people, in this room would really get it. Certainly the vast majority of the population would not get it, and thankfully for them they will never get it. Anyway, that is just a congratulations to all those that do it.

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:31): I rise to make a contribution on motion 699 sitting on the notice paper in Ms Crozier’s name in regard to ESTA. I have had the benefit of listening to the contribution of Minister Symes and also the contribution of Mr Bourman, and I want to commence my contribution in similar terms by noting the work that call takers do at ESTA and did at its previous iterations.

I was just looking at some of the detail on the ESTA website about what they actually do. They are emergency services call takers. This motion focuses on ambulance services, but As Mr Bourman said—and certainly from what I was looking at on the website—this type of call taking is not for everyone. As Mr Bourman said, can you imagine being on the end of a phone and receiving a phone call from perhaps someone being murdered, perhaps a parent who has realised their child has drowned or is drowning in a backyard pool and is calling for an ambulance, or someone who is having a heart attack? You are dealing with stressed people, people who are in highly emotionally fraught situations. I know the people who want to come to work at ESTA and who have worked in emergency services call taking are extraordinary people. They want to help. They want to go to work to help people who are in distress and to connect them up with the emergency services that they need at the time they need them.

I share the concerns of Minister Symes around this motion, because whilst we need to look at what is going on in terms of delays in dispatching emergency services, we cannot take away from the fact that these people are doing extraordinary work and they need our support. And I am just concerned that this motion is overly critical. It tends to focus in on the call dispatchers. I mean, Ms Crozier talks about a review by the Auditor-General—again, it is a ridiculous notion. We have had reviews in the past, but the next review that is coming up is being done by somebody who has experience in this field—and you could not ask for someone who is more eminent and better suited and more qualified. He is just about to finish this review.

Again, what is behind this motion is a political stunt. The rationale for it is not to actually assist people to do their job and to get Victorians the services they need when they need them, it is just to ventilate a pathetic attempt to try to attack the government on any grounds. We have got to talk about, as well, the war that the opposition went to with our ambulance services. That was an absolute atrocity, and it took this government to settle the ambulance dispute. The record funding that this government has put into public health cannot be compared to the approach of those opposite. I have said it before, and I will say it again: those opposite hate anything with the word ‘public’ in it. They hate public health, public education, you name it. If it is ‘public’, they hate it. So again, it is just a very shallow attempt to politicise something that is a very sensitive issue.

I really take issue with the amount of people sitting opposite saying, ‘Oh, the number of people that come to me’. Honestly, it is just a straw man argument from those opposite. I listened very carefully to the contribution Ms Symes made, and I agree with her comments. We have to be very careful about publicising some of the emergencies that are dealt with and the families attached to them, because we may be retraumatising those families, given the experience that they have found themselves in and perhaps losing a loved one. So the politicising of this issue by those opposite is actually very, very fraught.

I will just talk about the funding that the government has put in place for a number of immediate initiatives to address any concerns around the timeliness of dispatching of calls. The immediate initiatives that we put into place last year were in regard to a surge in demand, and these included offering overtime shifts to all workers and recalling operational employees seconded into projects across the organisation to help meet demand; re-skilling police and fire call takers to take ambulance calls during peak demand; and rolling out the Save 000 for Emergencies campaign, because we know—and we have heard stories of this—some people during the pandemic could not find a rapid antigen test and rang 000. That is not really what you have 000 for; 000 is for emergencies. Again, for those playing along at home, I am just putting the message out there: 000 is just for emergencies. If you cannot find your medication or you cannot access a RAT, you do not ring 000. You can ring Nurse-on-Call perhaps if you want some general advice from a nurse or you cannot get to your GP or whatever; Nurse-on-Call is really the best place for those sorts of calls. But we really need to save 000 for emergencies only.

We are also working with Telstra to introduce a recorded voice announcement when calls are received to encourage non-emergency callers to seek alternative assistance, which has contributed to a drop in demand of as much as 5 per cent. So again that just underscores the previous point that sometimes the calls that are coming through to 000 are not really coming through to the best place for those calls. We are also working closely with Ambulance Victoria on new shorter scripts for peak times and sharing call data with Ambulance Victoria so that paramedics are aware of the increase in demand.

The emergency management commissioner, Andrew Crisp, has also stood up a multi-agency task force of representatives from Emergency Management Victoria, Ambulance Victoria, Victoria Police, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the ESTA board to ensure that all avenues and options are being explored to bring call wait times and delays down, because as I said, there are a whole multitude of reasons for why these things happen. So with the leadership of acting CEO Stephen Leane and deputy CEO Deb Abbott and the additional support provided by this government, we are doing everything we can to reduce any wait times for 000 emergency calls. There is huge support as well for Ambulance Victoria, who are also facing higher demand, with the busiest quarter to December last year, including a staggering 91 397 code 1 call-outs—smashing it. Recently the Minister for Health announced a further $35 million for Ambulance Victoria, who welcomed a record-breaking 700 new paramedics last year, with more on the way.

As you can see, our emergency services are incredibly busy. There are a whole range of reasons for that, but they are incredibly important people. I just want to thank them for the very important work that they do, and I think that really needs to come through in this debate around this motion today. I and my colleagues on the government benches here have the utmost respect for their professionalism. As I said, I thank them, and I am sure my colleagues join with me in thanking them for their invaluable service to the community. They save lives every single day—without doubt, they save lives every single day—and I am also glad to be part of a government that is supporting them every step of the way as call volumes have escalated to levels we have never seen before.

I cannot impress enough upon this chamber and any of those people who may be watching at home on the live broadcast that 000 is only for emergencies. Do not call it if you cannot find a RAT. Do not call it if you cannot find your medication. If you want to ask a question about having a temperature or whatever or if your child has got a sniffle or a runny nose, Nurse-on-Call is really the best place for those sorts of calls. If it is an emergency, if you are having a heart attack or a stroke—those sorts of things where you need urgent medical assistance—000 is really the best place for that.

I just want to underscore as part of this discussion today and the debate on this motion that I really do thank all emergency call takers, particularly those in ESTA: we know the amazing work that you do; we know that you do this work in the most difficult of circumstances sometimes. I think it does take a very special person to be able to cope with some of the calls that come through. I just want to echo the comments made by Mr Bourman previously as a former police officer and someone who re-skilled in this area—and I said this earlier—that perhaps listening to someone calling when someone may be being murdered or having a critical sentinel health event can be very distressing, so we need to make sure that we support our critical call takers in the very important work that they do on behalf of all Victorians. I know these people come to work every day wanting to do their absolute very best for every Victorian, for every call that they take, for every person that they speak to and for every emergency service they dispatch on behalf of Victorians. I know they want to do their very best, so we are getting on with the job of providing more funding, resources, training and facilities. That has been outlined by the minister.

As I said earlier, this motion is being put by the very same people who have been calling for us to ditch masks, the same people who have been taking pictures with anti-vax protesters on the steps of Parliament. I mean, honestly, you cannot make this stuff up. It is very jarring to have to listen to this. Really the sentiment behind this motion is to try and say that we are hiding things, we are failing at things and all the rest of it, but what those opposite need to understand is we need to support those people who work in our emergency dispatch services.

In closing, because the clock is against me, I would just like to reiterate that I oppose this motion, and I urge those opposite to see that this is really not an appropriate motion but also urge the crossbench members in this chamber to join with the government benches and oppose this motion.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:41): This is a very important motion brought to the chamber by Ms Crozier. The first part of the motion is straightforward, and it seems broadly agreed across the chamber. There is legitimate concern at the moment about the performance of ESTA and the 000 service and the many cases that have been reflected in this chamber but more broadly across the community where the service has not functioned at a standard that the community can have confidence in. I think that is beyond question. I do not believe that anyone, including the Minister for Emergency Services, accepts that there does not need to be significant improvement in the performance of ESTA.

I know the minister has taken a number of steps, and she is relatively new in the portfolio; I note that. That is important, and I am glad that she is taking a number of steps. The point I would make, though, is that there are indeed, as is outlined at (1)(b), a worrying number of cases where lives are at risk. As at (1)(c), there has been a ‘failure to promptly dispatch an ambulance in a timely way’. As at (1)(d), cases have come to public notice where lives have been lost through what does appear to be delayed emergency services dispatch. Some of these are quite clear and they have been investigated, and indeed there is a clear link to poor dispatch processes. The resources have not been adequate, and the government has admitted that. The government is now providing more resources, and we welcome every step in that direction. This is not an attack on the call takers and the people at ESTA. They by and large do the very best job that they can with the resources they have and the position that they are in. So I pay tribute to their work, but that in no way is diminishing the importance of this motion. These problems need to be fixed, and they need to be fixed quickly. Indeed the community, I think, expect response times to meet the benchmarks that are required, and they are way, way, way away from meeting those benchmarks at this point.

The second part of the motion simply respectfully requests that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of ESTA and the interaction between ESTA and Ambulance Victoria. Now, ESTA of course does more than Ambulance Victoria. We understand the 000 service and how that actually operates. The ambulance service obviously is only one part of ESTA’s operation. Indeed ESTA has the police and other emergency services linked to it too, as it should have. Mr Bourman laid out his time at the old Intergraph service, which sought to provide that integrated management of those emergency calls.

I do want to put on record my developing concern about the government’s decision to deflect as many calls as they can from 000. There is an appropriate role for such streaming, but that streaming can be overdone, and if it is overdone, it will put lives at risk. People should feel that they have the right to call 000 without being impeded. It is actually quite important that there not be any psychological impediment in people’s minds in making that call to 000. If you make people concerned to call 000, there will be a percentage of cases that ought to have called 000 that do not call 000, and there are likely to be consequential negative and potentially seriously negative outcomes for some people who otherwise would have called 000.

I do understand the need to manage the flow of calls, and this is exactly the sort of material that the Auditor should look at. I understand that there have been a number of reviews, and I understand that Mr Ashton is doing a review. I have a high regard for Mr Ashton, but it is important to put on record his involvement, through the police, in the management and the operations of ESTA, given that police calls go through 000, are streamed, and both police and ambulance and the other emergency services are all part of the process with 000. It is important to understand Mr Ashton is a fine individual but an individual who has history with these services and actually thereby is not able to bring the fully dispassionate view that we would seek to have in place in this sort of review.

Consequently the Auditor is the one who should do the review. The Auditor did do a review of the ambulance service in 2010, and that was a very important ambulance service review that actually provided information to the community and enabled the community to judge and to take sensible and informed positions about ambulance services. I can indicate it was actually an important part of providing advice to government and opposition and the broad community on what needed to be done to fix many of the problems in the ambulance service at the time, in 2010, under John Brumby. So it is actually I think a very important point that the Auditor-General is in the position to do this review in the most significant way. He can actually bring a dispassionate view. He can bring the highest capacity to look at the data and the information, and he can do that with a set of recommendations coming back to the chamber and the Parliament.

Now, we cannot direct the Auditor to undertake such a review, but we can request it. We can say to the Auditor, ‘Please look at this matter’. It is a matter of life and death. It is a matter of the best outcome for the broad Victorian community. It is a matter of ensuring that those services are of the highest standard, and the Auditor, as an independent officer of the Parliament, is able to make his own decisions. That is why Ms Crozier has thoughtfully framed point 2 as:

respectfully requests that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of ESTA and the interaction between ESTA and Ambulance Victoria.

That is in effect a request respectfully within the parameters of the Auditor’s independence and within the parameters of the Auditor’s position as an independent officer of the Parliament. What the chamber can do here is only provide advice or an opinion in that sense and hence the very thoughtful way that Ms Crozier has framed this request.

I would urge the Auditor to look at these matters. It is clear that the 000 system is out of control. It is clear that the dispatch is not working. It is clear that lives are at risk. It is clear that in fact Victorians are dying because of the failures in the dispatch of ambulance services. So that is something that cannot be allowed to continue. We cannot wait for a review from a former senior policeman—a respected former senior policeman but a former senior policeman—who has his own history with these services and in that sense is very much an insider. What we need is the dispassionate view of an outsider, somebody who is able to look at the ambulance service, look at the dispatch system, look at the interaction between the two and work out the best way to improve them.

I have made my points quite clear about the government’s current direction, which is to defray or deflect as many calls as possible from the 000 service. I am not in any way diminishing some of the alternatives that are proposed, Nurse-on-Call and so forth. They have a significant place in the system, but we do need to be very, very careful in leaving the community with any intimation that they ought to be resisting calling 000 if they are in urgent need. Urgent need means that you should call 000. You should not wait. Campaigns have been run by the Heart Foundation and other groups to say, ‘Call. Don’t delay’, and I say that that is a very, very important message. Somebody who is potentially having a cardiac event should not delay, should not pause, should not feel bound by the information that is out there talking about the congestion on the service. They should immediately call such a service—the 000 call service—and the service should have sufficient resources provided by government to enable it to handle the peaks and troughs of activity.

This is a very balanced, thoughtful motion. There is almost no pushback on the first part of the motion. It is only the independent review by the Auditor-General, the genuinely independent review that is requested, that seems to be something that the government is frightened of, that the government does not want to see in place. I say it is the right way forward and it will provide confidence to the community.

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (10:51): I rise to speak on opposition motion 699 requesting that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of ESTA and the interaction between ESTA and Ambulance Victoria. I would like to thank Ms Crozier for bringing this motion to the Parliament. At the outset I would like to acknowledge ESTA workers, paramedics, and in fact all our emergency services workers who work tirelessly, often in extremely traumatic situations. Their work and dedication are not being questioned here whatsoever. Just to reiterate, I personally would like to thank them for their ongoing diligence and commitment.

I have almost lost count of how many times I have raised issues relating to ambulance response times in Parliament over the past three years. Residents across my electorate contact me regularly with reports of long delays, hospital ramping and associated issues. I have brought to Parliament their frustrations that ESTA continues to use static scripts that do not inform residents how along they might have to wait for an ambulance and that they offer little direction or advice by way of alternatives. I have met with Ambulance Victoria and had these discussions several times. They are something that Ambulance Victoria has said they will give consideration to—those scripts.

But before COVID hit our regional services they were already under strain, and most regions could not be confident that a code 1 event would be responded to within the 15-minute benchmark. Across Northern Victoria’s 27 local government areas paramedics attended 16 995 callouts to code 1 emergencies in the 12 months to 31 December. That in itself is an enormous strain on those very systems, on our paramedics, on the ESTA call service. This was up 9.6 per cent on previous years, which highlights the extremely large numbers that we are seeing. I would also like to in fact reiterate something that Ms Terpstra said: if it is not an emergency, please do not call 000, call Nurse-on-Call. I have actually asked my staff to make sure that that is on our newsletters, because I think it is important to continue to get that message across: if it is not an emergency, do not call 000.

It was approximately a year ago that it took almost 18 minutes on average for an ambulance to arrive at a code 1 emergency callout in Northern Victoria. Now that average response time has expanded to 19 minutes and 26 seconds. Now, 1 minute and 26 seconds probably does not sound like a lot. However, if you are having a heart attack or it is an absolute emergency, that time frame can be the difference, unfortunately, between life and death. I feel for our local paramedics and for the ESTA workers, and I have no doubt that they are working under constant pressure. They are often called on to do overtime and to work extra shifts. The public scrutiny does not make it easy and the work is tough. I will just reiterate: this is not a condemnation of those workers at all. This is looking at a way in which we can fix this problem. For people trying to get through to ESTA, such as the case recently where a call went unanswered for 33 minutes—another person with chest pains waited 14 minutes for someone to pick up the phone—their panic, pain and fear can hardly be imagined.

These issues are being reported, unfortunately, nearly every week. It gives me no pleasure to give you a case study I was told about on Monday to illustrate this point. Last Sunday was a beautiful day to enjoy boating up at Mount Buffalo, which is in my electorate of Northern Victoria. In thinking about this landscape, it is important to note here that there is no internet or phone reception outside of emergency calls. This case that was reported to me was of a young adult who had severe sunstroke. After about an hour of helpful bystanders trying to treat this person, their condition progressed to hallucinations and vomiting as well as periodically passing out. At this point they called an ambulance. Their call was answered. The timing of that does not appear to be too much of an issue. They were told by ESTA not to move the patient and that an ambulance would be dispatched, but they were not told how long it would take or what alternatives they could pursue. I believe there was no recommendation to call Nurse-on-Call and no suggestion to transport them to the hospital that was 15 minutes away. They were told to stay put and wait. The phone call ended, and wait they did.

Another bystander suggested they put the person in the car and take them to the local hospital, knowing that an ambulance would be a long time coming. The people who took responsibility for this person did not take that advice on the basis that ESTA had told them not to move the person. In the end, some 2 hours into the overall incident, some local nurses walked past and thankfully offered their assistance. In the meantime the people trying to help this person had been back on the phone to ESTA, frantic because the patient’s condition had deteriorated significantly and they were in and out of consciousness. The nurses’ advice to these people was the same as that given by the bystander more than an hour earlier. They basically said, ‘You won’t get an ambulance out here’ and recommended they take the person to hospital themselves. Thankfully that local advice was heeded. The person was treated at the local hospital and is now recovering, but only when the nurses suggested that they be driven to hospital did the ESTA workers suggest that would be okay and cancel the ambulance.

I think it can also be difficult for the ESTA call takers to know and understand the topography that these patients and the paramedics are working with. None of these people were trying to treat this person; that is the point of calling emergency services. The call at the start probably was not a code 1, but the person was clearly very unwell and needed treatment. It makes me wonder why, in a fairly remote area with no mobile phone reception and limited ambulance resources, they were not given different options or terms of advice. These people did not even know what Nurse-on-Call is; they had not heard of it. There was not even Dr Google available because there was no internet connection. All they had was ESTA’s advice. So I would also encourage community members, when they are going into those areas where there is no internet connection, to have a plan organised for if something does happen. This is an enormous lake where people go waterskiing all the time. Have a plan.

For a life-saving service where every minute counts, every day counts in terms of fixing this system. I recognise the questions put to the minister yesterday and her commitment to improvements at ESTA, including more resources and more support. The Auditor-General provides a very valuable service to our public agencies, to our Parliament and to our state, and we feel this referral is appropriate given the challenges being faced by ESTA and the ambulance service. For a service that is taking up to 4000 calls a day, it is extremely important. We recognise that there is a review being run by former Victoria Police chief commissioner Mr Graham Ashton, and I hope the outcomes of that review will be made public and deliver some immediate solutions to the government. The government should also welcome a review by the Auditor-General. Every step we take towards understanding the issues and how the system can be improved will help protect the lives of our residents.

I will leave my contribution there, but I commit to keep bringing the issues to the government and to working with them, with Ambulance Victoria and with ESTA on the needs of Northern Victoria and what we can do to make improvements. There is no doubt here that lives depend on it.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (11:00): I concur with my colleagues and I think the sentiment to some degree in the chamber that this is actually a really, really important topic. It is actually good to be able to discuss these issues, and to get more facts on the table can only be helpful when we are talking about saving lives and extremely difficult circumstances that inevitably people, in spite of all the best efforts, will experience in their lifetime. It is likely to happen. Emergencies come and go as they do.

I want to address some points, though, that have been raised in the chamber that were of concern to me because I was not sure exactly how far they were going to be taken. I actually think there is some peril in some of the comments that have transpired from those opposite in the chamber today. One of the comments was somehow casting aspersions on encouraging people to use 000 for emergencies. What is wrong with people using 000 for emergencies and making it really clear what that service is for, noting that the purpose of that service is to ensure that those people who need that care can get through and can get the care they need? I do not understand, and I have been reflecting on it for the last few minutes as to why there is something wrong with our government encouraging those using a 000 line for emergency circumstances. So I really do think it is quite irresponsible of the opposition, and specifically Mr Davis, to somehow infer that there is something wrong with using 000 for emergency circumstances, noting that this specific service is prioritised for people in emergency circumstances—sorry, there are a lot of services and circumstances there—in an emergency situation, who absolutely need that care and support. So can we please resile from casting aspersions on the premise upon which a 000 service is provided, because I find that to be very irresponsible and inappropriate, and I think there is nothing wrong with helping the community to understand and reinforcing the purpose behind that service also to ensure its sustainability into the future.

I also took exception—and I think many of us have—to aspersions which you cannot back away from. If you say, ‘Graham Ashton, no, he’s not going to cut the mustard. We want this other person’, and then say, ‘Oh, no, no. We’re not casting aspersions, no, but we don’t want Graham Ashton’, what are you saying? You cannot have it both ways. He has had a very esteemed career. And let me say, that review has not been completed yet, but it is almost complete, so let us allow the process. It is like, ‘Oh, we’ll start a review, but we don’t want an answer; start another review, we don’t want the answer; start another review, we don’t want the answer’. Well, what is the point of that?

Further to some of the points that our Attorney-General was making, can we actually get the outcomes of the review, because we are not resiling from anything here. That was the other claim, that somehow we are running away from this issue when in fact we have fully endorsed a review. We are looking at this with a fine-tooth comb. It is in all our interests to always be ameliorating this kind of very specific and very critical service, so for goodness sake, let us allow the review to unfold, let the outcomes of the review be revealed and let the government actually attend to and actually examine the outcome of the review and in so doing be able to critically evaluate exactly where we are at with ESTA now and into the future on top of all the other actions that are already underway, because we are not only waiting for that review. I think it has already been stated in the chamber that there are many, many other actions that are well underway right now.

I think we should also take care—and I think it was very sensitively communicated—that when you are in this specific kind of emergency role, having to take life and death situations and make appropriate decisions with very little time, you do need a particular disposition. And even then with that disposition, we are all human and over time these things can take their toll on human beings, so it does require an enormous amount of resilience. So I extend, as I think many have here, my utmost respect for those who are willing and able to take on that kind of role. I am not sure I could necessarily take it on myself. I do understand, having known some people who work in those circumstances, you have to remain literally cool in a crisis, and I am not trying to play with words there. It is a particular kind of human being that is able to undertake that role, and I would hope that whilst on the one hand it is very important to have this kind of debate, on the other hand we are not then having a sledge at our very precious, I should say, staff in ESTA and Ambulance Victoria in particular. That is a concern that I have—that when this debate is politicised, as I think we can very well see it is, there is a risk that for those who are at the front line and are doing these very difficult tasks on behalf of all of us, we somehow diminish or depreciate the calibre of or the respect for their role, and I would hate for that to be the case.

Particularly that is added to when you start saying, ‘Oh, Graham Ashton, no, he doesn’t cut the mustard’. So what are you saying? He has worked in emergency services—‘Oh, but that’s not good enough for us, because we want someone really, really, really, really, really, really independent’. So what is that? Where is that defined? Nobody has defined that here—and nothing against the Auditor-General in any respect either. Of course, he or she has their role in any case. But at the same time, no-one here has absolutely clarified why. ‘We just don’t want this person’. Well, that is actually not good enough. You have not given good reasons as to why we should not take on board the review that is being conducted by an esteemed former police commissioner. You have not given good reasons, and frankly I find it quite insulting to the very difficult and critical task that he is undertaking at present to think that it is okay and that you can dismiss it as, ‘Oh, no, we’re not being negative, we just want this. We don’t want that, we want this, because it suits our political narrative’, because I think that is what this is about.

Now, on top of that, they are always ready to run away from the fact that we have been through a pandemic. We are not resting on our laurels with that, but you cannot ignore the fact that across the board, staff, whether they are in ESTA or in other areas of the community, have had to be furloughed as well. It just adds extra pressure, and to discount these kinds of factors is also irresponsible. But it is kind of consistent, if we go back to that political narrative, with casting aspersions around masks, associating with anti-vaccination protestors et cetera: ‘On the one hand we’re all about health, we’re all about the community, but on the other hand we’re happy to send these mixed signals when it comes to taking specific action to protect the health of the community’. So on the one hand sledging at Graham Ashton, sending mixed signals about health but trying to be the noble ones in this debate—really unacceptable. Having said that, I am glad we are having this debate today, but I hope it lands in the right place and you will understand very clearly why we are opposing this motion, because you have not even allowed the review to complete as a starting point, let alone all the other unfair criticisms that have been thrown across the chamber today.

Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) (11:09): I rise today to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion 699 around the operation of ESTA, and I have to say I am a little bit gobsmacked by Ms Taylor’s contribution to the chamber right now, because this government just will not admit that the system is broken. They will talk about everything else apart from the fact that the system is broken. Lives have been lost. People have been in trouble. It is a systematic failure. But in saying that, I want to pay tribute to the operators, the staff at ESTA. Working under the pump, they are doing a pretty good job, and our ambos are working to full capacity as well. It is not their fault. It is not the operators’ fault. It is not our healthcare workers’ fault in the hospitals. It is a problem with the system, and the standard operating procedure of this government is they will not admit it is wrong and it is broken. They will talk about everything else apart from the fact that it is broken.

Mr Finn: They just won’t take responsibility for anything.

Mr ONDARCHIE: Let us not forget, picking up Mr Finn’s interjection, they refuse to take responsibility for anything.

Let me say, let me remind us, that Daniel Andrews has been either the Minister for Health or the Premier of this state for 12 of the last 16 years. You cannot get away from the fact that if there is a failure of this system, it is his failure. So let us start where we should start: admit, government, that the system is broken. Admit that there are systemic failures in the system. Daniel Andrews is more interested in closing playgrounds without evidence, putting in curfews from 9.00 pm to 5.00 am without evidence, talking about mandating a third jab in Victoria without any evidence, making a whole lot of decisions around our health system without evidence—and then, when asked, the chief health officer said, ‘Well, I wasn’t asked. Nobody asked me’. So either he gets evidence or he does not. But the only evidence that exists today is that the system is broken, and we need to admit that.

But what do the government do when they will not acknowledge the system is broken? They blame Victorians. They say, ‘It’s not our fault, it’s Victorians’ fault. They’re ringing the wrong phone number’. Now, these people might be distressed. They might have some mental health challenges. It might be a genuine emergency. These could be older Victorians. There could be vulnerable Victorians who are ringing this number looking for some solution. And the answer from the government is, ‘Well, stop ringing us. Ring someone else’. It is a systemic failure, and the government is failing to admit it. This is another failure of this government. There is a list of them, but I am not going to spend the chamber’s time listing the failures of this government because it is so obvious.

Every day there is a problem in this state, and Daniel Andrews says, ‘It’s not my fault; it’s somebody else’s fault’. During the pandemic, which Ms Taylor talked about, he blamed someone with a ventilator. He blamed someone in Argentina, I think it was. He blamed everybody else but himself. And when it came to private security guards and hotels, he said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t recall’. This is a man who has a reputation for total control of his government. Ask the backbenchers, ask the parliamentary secretaries, ask the ministers: they do not get a say—he decides it all. And that came from the mouth of a minister—he decides it all. So how is it possible that we put private security guards into quarantine hotels and rejected the ADF and Daniel Andrews said, ‘I don’t recall’?

This is a failure of this government, and one thing is very, very clear: Victorians have lost trust in this government—and rightly so. They trust the government to look after them or get out of the way; this government does neither. I support this motion.

Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (11:13): I rise to speak on the motion before the house, and I will be opposing the motion for a number of reasons, some of which Ms Taylor has already reflected on, especially the concerns about the direction of the debate here and the politicisation of our emergency services. I think that is the most concerning part. Nonetheless, I have been heartened by a number of the speeches given here today, which have given me an opportunity to reflect on the amazing work that ESTA workers and Ambulance Victoria do and on emergency services overall. Mr Bourman touched on earlier his lived experience in the police force of how they interact with other emergency services and what they experience and what challenging environments they work in. That was heartening to hear, because I think sometimes we can lose sight when we are in this place, especially when there is a political overlay to the discussion. Nonetheless, I think there is no doubt that our health system not only in this state but across the country and globally has been affected by the pandemic, and it has had far-reaching consequences, which have been discussed here at length.

But it is also important to understand that as a government we have responded. The minister, Minister Symes, who is doing an amazing job as Attorney-General and also as Minister for Emergency Services, has explained that we have hired an extra 43 staff in response to what is happening—43 staff on the floor at ESTA by the end of the month, and we are not stopping there. Training courses are full. With an extra $27.5 million of funding last October for ESTA, they can continue to recruit with confidence, knowing that there will be permanent roles at the end of that training. The funding also allowed ESTA to put in place a number of immediate initiatives late last year in response to the surge in demand.

This is what has already been done by this government: offering overtime shifts to all workers and recalling operational employees seconded into projects across the organisation to help meet demand; re-skilling police and fire call takers to take ambulance calls during peak demand; rolling out the Save 000 for Emergencies campaign; working with Telstra to introduce a recorded voice announcement when calls are received to encourage non-emergency callers to seek alternative assistance, which has contributed to a drop in demand of as much as 5 per cent; and working closely with Ambulance Victoria on new shorter scripts for peak times and sharing call data with Ambulance Victoria so that paramedics are aware of the increased demand.

Victoria is unique in Australia—in fact, rare in the world—in that we have a single, centralised authority responsible for police, fire, ambulance and State Emergency Service call taking and dispatch. So it is a world-first and a world-leading service, and that is why it is disappointing when some people try to talk down our services. They do amazing work, located at three locations—one of which is in my electorate, Southern Metropolitan, in East Burwood, one of the call and dispatch centres. People are sitting at desks coordinating and making sure the service is delivered. It is amazing work they do. They answer millions of calls. In 2020 they answered 2.7 million calls. But I mean, what is critical here is what we are hearing, that there has been an increase in code 1 dispatches to these kinds of extra-critical events and that is why it has put extra strain on the services at hand. What is important is that is what has occurred, but we have responded—that is what you need to understand here. The people that undertake this work, we know they do it with the utmost care and commitment. It is a difficult job and it is a challenging role, but probably unless you have worked in emergency services it would be difficult, unless you have lived experience, to relate to what they are doing.

I did notice, and many Victorians will recall because it was not that long ago, the state opposition’s record with Ambulance Victoria—Mr Davis and Ms Crozier’s record about how they handled Ambulance Victoria and our ambos. I am not going to reflect on that.

Mr Finn interjected.

Mr ERDOGAN: Mr Finn, you are interjecting. I will focus back on the motion at hand, and the motion at hand is Ms Crozier’s motion, which is, I feel, very politicised and biased. Debate about the issues about emergency services is needed because, like I said, they are critical to the safety and security of all Victorians, but there have been many opportunities for them to raise this in a more respectful manner. The minister has always stated that she welcomes conversation in a respectful manner.

I do note that the state opposition’s interest in these matters is here for everyone to see: there are none of them in the chamber. Not one person from the Liberal-National parties is in the chamber, and it is only Labor MPs and a number of the crossbench that are here. Mr Meddick is here; he is very interested. Mr Gepp is here, and Minister Tierney is here. It is Labor and the crossbench that are here, but the state opposition have no interest. They have brought this before the house about an important, critical service that is needed for the safety and security of Victorians, but they are not interested in the actual debate. They just want a few talking points and a few headlines. They want to talk down the services. They want to talk down the people doing this critical work, which is disappointing. It really is disappointing, because the minister has said she is open to having a conversation in a respectful manner, but still not one person of the opposition is here to hear the debate. So I am lost for words, really, because I thought that they were interested.

Ms Tierney interjected.

Mr ERDOGAN: That is right, Ms Tierney. That is right. They came here and cast aspersions on a number of people working in critical services and made reflections on their performance and then they just abandoned it. They are not even in the chamber. They have come, had their bit, and they have walked away. They have walked away from people in emergency services, from people in Ambulance Victoria, but it is not the first time. As I said, they have got a record of this. When they were in government last we remember how they treated our paramedics and ambulance services, so I am not surprised. Like I said, it is disappointing that they would do it this way at such a critical time when we are dealing with a global pandemic and when people on the front line of health services in our state, in our country, are working tirelessly. They are working overtime, cancelling holidays, cancelling secondments and coming back to work in the critical field on the front line. In the end the opposition is not interested in that. They are not interested; they have just walked away from the critical services and the critical employees in our emergency services and at ESTA.

What does ESTA do? I guess it is important to understand that they provide a 24-hour emergency call-taking dispatch service for police, fire, ambulance and VICSES. That is critical. Those are the most critical services that our state provides; it is usually when people are in situations where it really is an emergency that they contact these services. You need to understand that they are carrying over 31 million radio calls over the metropolitan mobile radio service also. They provide 3 million data transactions on the data network and deliver 1.4 million messages to CFA, VICSES and Ambulance Victoria volunteers and staff via the statewide emergency alerting system. So that is how critical they are to our state’s emergency infrastructure, but the state opposition is not interested in that. They are interested in casting aspersions on people that work in the sector unfairly.

I am glad that we have been able to support their efforts by securing supplies of rapid antigen tests, something that the federal government forgot about, and working closely with these agencies to implement appropriate operating procedures throughout the pandemic. It has been challenging at times and the health directions and guidelines have changed as this global pandemic has evolved, but in Victoria I am proud to say that we have done an amazing job in trying to decrease their workload through our high vaccination rate. And the high vaccination rate did not just occur; it happened because of the health rulings that were made, the directions. So I want to take this opportunity to thank all the workers that helped in the rollout of vaccines across our state. You know, almost 95 per cent are double dosed. It is fantastic, and that has assisted our emergency service employees in terms of trying to manage the workload.

Some on the crossbench would know all about those people who have been campaigning against vaccines, against this medical treatment, and putting all sorts of conspiracy theories out there which are reducing the trust in our institutions at this critical time. It is disappointing, because Mr Ondarchie touched on people losing trust in institutions. I wonder why, when people are spamming and trolling online, spreading misinformation. No wonder people are losing trust in our institutions. On that note I will conclude my speech.

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (11:24): I will be brief. In October 2021 Nick suffered a heart attack. Calls to 000 took 15 minutes to reach an operator; it is meant to take 5 seconds. Paramedics arrived more than 25 minutes after the call for an ambulance was made, and it was too late.

The state of our 000 service is abysmal. Many calls are not answered in time. ESTA staff report that wait times of over 5 minutes occur daily, with delays of up to 30 minutes in some circumstances. The government wants to blame this on COVID, but we have had COVID for two years now. We have known this was coming. This is the result of long-term structural failings.

I raised issues about ambulance delays as far back as March 2019, well before COVID even hit. Many regional Victorians, even after they get through to ESTA, face a long, long wait for an ambulance. What might be a shocking story in Melbourne is life as usual in too many parts of regional Victoria. ESTA workers are understaffed and overburdened, and it is costing lives. And in the middle of the staffing crisis the government sacked a bunch of ESTA workers because they were not vaccinated, clearly showing that ideology matters more to this government than saving lives.

Victorians are paying more tax than any other Australians, but it is clear that money is being wasted. The Victorian service is even trying to cover its staffing shortfall by seconding staff from New South Wales ambulance services. If COVID was the issue, the New South Wales service would not have the operators to spare. We heard yesterday and again today the government blaming people calling 000 for non-urgent matters for the delays. Maybe if the government had not spent the last two years whipping so many Victorians into a panic over COVID, there would be less trivial calls being made.

This problem should not be so hard to sort out. Surge capacity needs to be created. If, as we have just heard, this is the only service in the world that is run like this, perhaps there is a reason for that. If we actually want to sort out these issues, we should not be afraid of the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office investigating, we should welcome it. Only a government focused on spin over substance would oppose a proper review of these problems. The Liberal Democrats will support this motion.

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (11:26): I rise to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion before the house today on ESTA. I have got to say that you listen to many things in this place on many different debates and you just scratch your head. You scratch your head a bit, don’t you? I have heard the opposition through the course of this debate talk about how wonderful ESTA is, the fantastic work that ESTA staff do: ‘It’s not their fault, it’s somebody else’s fault’. And what they do, over the last few years in particular, certainly under Mr Davis’s leadership in this house, is they walk in here time after time and target public officials, slander them, attack their character and attack their work and then in the next instant walk in here on a different day on a different motion and start to applaud people.

In my mind he is ‘the thong’. That is his new title in this place: the thong. You know, there are a couple of different variations of what the thong is. I will leave you to conjure up the one that best suits Mr Davis in your mind, but he flip-flops, in my view. He just flip-flops from one to the other—but either picture would suit, I have got to say. That is how interested in this motion this mob actually were—that when Mr Erdogan was on his feet making his contribution there was not one member of the coalition present in this chamber, on non-government business day, to participate in the debate.

Mr Ondarchie: I was here.

Mr GEPP: No, Mr Ondarchie, no-one was here. Those benches were empty, and the video does not lie. Those benches were empty. There was not one, not one. That is how much the coalition are actually interested in this debate. They are not interested in this debate. What they are interested in is cheap political pointscoring. That is all they are interested in.

Mr Ondarchie talked about how ‘Firstly, you’ve got to admit that there are mistakes’. This government has a record of constantly reviewing all of the important and essential services that we have in this state. We are not afraid to have people look into the services that we provide Victorians and give recommendations to the government for consideration. Last October we announced that Mr Graham Ashton, one of the great Victorians in this state, who had an esteemed career with Victoria Police, would conduct a review into ESTA to look at the services that it offers, to look at the capabilities that it offers.

Ms Taylor in her contribution talked about the tabling of that review. The handing down of that report is not too far away. But that is not good enough for those opposite, because now Mr Ashton has just joined the long list of people from our public services—our public officials, who serve Victoria so well over their careers—that Mr Davis has just added to. Clearly in his mind Mr Ashton is not good enough to conduct this review. Mr Ashton is not qualified. Well, bunkum to that, because he is.

I want to refer back very quickly in the last few seconds that I have got to Mr Bourman’s contribution, a very short but passionate and concise contribution, where he said that until you have walked a mile in the shoes of an ESTA worker, the call takers, you need to be very, very careful to understand the sort of work that these people are undertaking—the great work, the great service that they provide to the people of Victoria. I want to lend my voice, as so many others have here today, and thank those people for the wonderful work they do. They do a marvellous job. It is a difficult job. It is a tough job. I cannot imagine the circumstances they deal with on a daily basis, and unlike Mr Davis I will not stand up in this place and trash their work. I reject the proposition.

Motion agreed to.