Wednesday, 9 February 2022

Committees

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Reference

Debate resumed.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (12:57): I continue my contribution now from the latest Victorian Agency for Health Information report of 25 October last year. Even though the number of emergency department presentations is still high compared to 2019–20 for those aged 0 to 17, overall the number is now below the levels in 2019 and 2020. The government is committed to the reform of mental health, and the record-breaking investment in the recent state budget provided $3.8 billion to kickstart the next decade of reform of mental health services.

I could go on and talk a lot more about the government’s commitment and record on supporting health, mental health and all the social and economic issues during the pandemic, but I would just like to touch very briefly on suicide rates. Each death by suicide is one too many and has a very strong impact on family, friends and communities. They can be very devastating. We must continue to work together to reduce suicide with our efforts involving communities and health services too. The latest monthly report from the Coroners Court on suicides, of 15 November last year, shows that so far we have had 34 fewer deaths than at the same time in 2021, and also the year-to-date figure is the lowest since 2017.

My colleagues may go on and talk more about that. In the interests of time I want to say that we do not need a parliamentary inquiry to tell us the number and the types of presentations in hospitals because the information sought is already publicly available on the Victorian Agency for Health Information website. I would invite anyone interested to visit the website to see the many different reports on ambulance services, hospital admissions and discharges, emergency care, elective surgeries and other information. (Time expired)

Sitting suspended 1.00 pm until 2.04 pm.

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (14:04): I am very pleased to rise to join the debate on this incredibly important motion that Dr Cumming has put on the notice paper. I want to thank her for doing so. It has been good to have discussions with Dr Cumming over recent days about the content of this motion, and I want to indicate for the benefit of the house at the very outset that the opposition parties will be wholeheartedly supporting Dr Cumming’s motion.

In her motion she calls for, of course, a new reference to the Legal and Social Issues Committee to inquire into a range of really important matters. She is after more data when it comes to the provision of mental health services, the number of suicides and the number and type of presentations at hospitals and at allied health pathology and diagnostic services. In particular today I want to focus my remarks upon point (5). Point (4) is also very important, and I dare say we will hear more anon from Ms Crozier on this point:

the effects of delays in surgery and diagnostic services, if any, to the Victorian health system and to the health of Victorians;

So I will leave point (4) to my honourable friend. I will focus more on point 5:

the health and learning impacts of school closures on children …

which have been so significant. The chief argument from those opposite in their opposition to this motion seems to be that we do not need any more data, we do not need any more information. Dr Kieu was clear on that. Now, that struck me as an odd position to take given that it is directly at odds with the position that Mr Merlino, the Deputy Premier, the Minister for Mental Health and also the Minister for Education, has taken recently. I read in the HeraldSun the other day that:

Mr Merlino said the state government was interested in gathering more data on children’s mental wellbeing, but wasn’t sure whether this should be collected through NAPLAN testing as has been proposed …

by some. So Mr Merlino is in fact in lock step with the medical experts here, including the experts at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. During my contribution I will speak about some of the views put forward by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in a seminal report that that body issued some months ago, last year, and also in a new report issued just earlier this month. In that report the experts at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute specifically call for more data, greater information, about the matters that Dr Cumming’s motion goes directly to the heart of, especially when it comes to point (5). At the conclusion of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s new COVID-19 research brief they say that there are research gaps, and the institute calls for more:

… data to identify children requiring intervention and ongoing care, as we move through the pandemic

Dr Kieu said we need no more data. That is not what Mr Merlino says, and it is not what the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute says. The list of research gaps goes on:

Surveillance data on children’s mental health to align policy efforts in this area with need including level of severity, population risk and geographic concentration

Intervention studies with robust evaluation designs to address the gap in disparities because of the pandemic

Clarification of factors building resilience in children and families—

so important given the content of this report that I will come to momentarily—

Targeted studies on the indirect effects on first Nations children—

which have been severe—

Building evidence base for online resources and intervention

Screening program for mental health and wellbeing on return to school to identify kids in need of support.

So if the chief argument against this motion from the government is that, ‘Well, we don’t need any of this information; it’s all available publicly’, well, that is the opposite of what Mr Merlino says. That is the opposite of what the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute says. And in this new report from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute we hear about the very significant health and learning impacts on children of, in particular, school closures—to come very directly to point 5 in the motion before us today.

I will work my way through in chronological order just two or three of the key points in this new report. What the new report says is that the impacts on health and learning of school closures are to be ‘long lasting’. In an earlier report the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute said that COVID is of course a risk to children. What the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute says is that when children get COVID they are either asymptomatic—so they have no symptoms at all—or they have symptoms ‘similar to a cold’. Now, before any members jump down my throat, those are not my words. It is a direct quote of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute: children are asymptomatic or they have symptoms ‘similar to a cold’.

Previous reports from this institute have found that by far and away the greatest risk to Victorian children right now is not COVID-19, but it is ongoing lockdowns and ongoing school closures. These policy levers pulled time and time again by the Andrews Labor government have caused massive harm to children, and the experts say that we do not yet understand the depth of that harm. We must carry out further work in order to understand that to then put policy responses in place. That is all the motion before the house today is calling for, and that is why every single member of this house is duty bound to support it.

It is interesting that over the period of this pandemic the Murdoch institute and various other eminent health bodies have pointed to rising inequality, something of course that those opposite say they care deeply about, and I do not doubt that many of my friends opposite do care deeply about it, as we do on this side of the house. Interestingly, when it comes to education, the institute says that when we close our schools, as we did in metropolitan Melbourne for over 170 days last year, what we see is a significant increase in educational inequality when it comes to the wellbeing of students. I will find the exact point in a moment.

It has been estimated—

so says this new report—

that the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students grows at triple the rate during remote learning …

There is already a massive achievement gap in Victoria. We have heard Ms Bath talk about the shocking problems in regional and rural areas, where we see, for a whole range of nuanced and complex reasons, such educational disadvantage. We must remember that schools across country Victoria were shut down last year and the year before for months on end, not because there was any COVID in many of our regional communities but rather—so said Mr Merlino—to ‘level the playing field’. Well, there is no level playing field between kids in metro Melbourne and kids in regional areas. These gaps have been exacerbated. That is my view as a former schoolteacher and a former head of a large secondary school. It is also the view of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. It is why it is so vital for the Legal and Social Issues Committee to carry out this inquiry, just like the health experts say we must do, to gather far more information about the impacts of the government’s policies.

I agree with the comments of others that more variants are coming. Indeed more pandemics are coming—it is a fact that the eventuality that has sat atop the risk matrix of every single Western government at least for the last 15 years has been a pandemic. So we have known that pandemics will come. We must be prepared with far better policy responses than the policy responses that have trashed our kids’ learning and trashed our kids’ mental health. We must get the facts, and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute says, despite what Dr Kieu may put forward in this place, that we simply do not have those facts.

There are a range of other important points to be made when it comes to the impact on young people. The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute points to the impact on our most vulnerable children, those children for whom home is not a safe haven. Of course the vast majority of Victorian families are loving families and the vast majority of Victorian homes are safe homes, but sadly not all are. Again it is a damning indictment on this government’s policies, enacted in many parts of the state to ‘level the playing field’, not to deal with any risk of a pandemic, that we increased the amount of time children spent with violent caregivers or chaotic households without access to the usual means of escape. Access to child protection services was reduced—that is what Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute says. It is another reason why it is so important, to come back to point (5) of the motion, that we learn far more about the health and learning impacts of school closures on children, that we figure out how to do things so very differently, when inevitably the next variant hits us and yes, I am afraid to say, inevitably the next pandemic hits us.

The other points in Dr Cumming’s motion have great merit. I dare say other speakers on this side of the house will address them. From my perspective I can say again that the coalition parties wholeheartedly support this motion. It is an important motion, and my sincere hope is that all of us around the chamber will find it within ourselves to also support it.

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (14:15): In rising to speak in relation to Dr Cumming’s motion today I want to put a number of matters on the record as they relate to this government’s commitment not only to recognising the impact of mental illness and compromised wellbeing on the lives of Victorians but also to again underscore the impact that the pandemic and the response to the pandemic have had on the mental health and wellbeing of a number of cohorts and communities in particular. I also want to make it abundantly clear, just in case there is a temptation to propose it outside this chamber or indeed in response to anything that government members might say, that the impact upon children of isolation, of home-based and remote learning and of detachment from the very opportunities to learn, whether through play, through social interaction or through a range of exposures to different circumstances, has been profound. Nobody is disagreeing with that.

What we need to do, in understanding what that impact is, is to my mind and to the government’s mind continue to work as assiduously as we can across a range of different portfolios including, as Dr Bach has pointed out, that of the Deputy Premier, who is also the Minister for Education and the Minister for Mental Health, and other portfolios as they relate to disability, to community services, indeed to local government, to regional development and to the way in which our education and training pathways related work is managed. We need to understand that we have not just in Victoria and not just in Australia but indeed around the world populations that are grieving and reeling and yet to understand the full weight of impact that this pandemic has had on them. This is part of an intergenerational challenge not just in the context of the loss of family members, friends, workmates and members of communities and of long-term damage and compromise through long COVID but also of the depression, anxiety and indeed other serious and chronic forms of mental illness that have been exacerbated because of the changed circumstances that were necessary to respond to the pandemic and to other challenges to public health.

It has been sought to be made as an argument, and I think a cheap one at that, that the public health orders which have been issued by the chief health officer and the orders and restrictions which have been made in the course of pandemic orders since the passage of the pandemic-specific legislation last year have not considered mental health or wellbeing or have considered them to an insufficient degree in the way in which such orders have been made. As Professor Sutton indicated in the public hearing of the Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee, mental health and wellbeing is central to his work in public health. As the Premier has also indicated, alongside the Minister for Mental Health and indeed the former Minister for Mental Health, who is now the Minister for Health, Minister Martin Foley in the other place, the pandemic has had an extraordinary and devastating impact on mental health and wellbeing across the state.

That is why the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System were amended to incorporate the impact of the pandemic upon people living with mental illness and upon communities at large as a consequence of changes that were reasonable, necessary and proportionate in response to the other public health challenges of the pandemic. That is why, in response to the royal commission’s recommendations, all of which we have said we accept, all of which we have promised to implement, there are a range of measures which go very, very specifically to the matters raised in Dr Cumming’s motion and which I am going to put on the record now.

There is, by way of background and information for this chamber and anyone else who is interested in the mental health response more broadly, an existing envelope of $225 million as part of supporting Victorians’ mental health throughout the pandemic. There is a further investment of $22 million to support fast-tracked tailored care to people who need it and therefore to alleviate the burden on our emergency departments as the number of COVID patients and the number of presentations grows—or indeed grew. It has plateaued and now, as we see with a measure of enormous relief and gratitude, begun to fall. There is no denying, however, that the pressure on the health system has been immense. We have seen that changes to the availability of elective surgery have had a knock-on impact on the way in which Victorians have been able to live their lives, notwithstanding the changes to restrictions.

What we have seen is that community has never been more important than now, and this is why, on balance, the decision has been taken in fact to encourage a return to school and to school-based learning, to provide the supports and the certainty of RATs being made available through the school system, to introduce a range of measures that allay concerns and fear around transmission given the airborne nature of, in particular, the omicron variant, and to introduce air purifiers and HEPA filters into our schools.

But in addition to that there is $13.3 million to deliver 20 pop-up community mental health services with around 90 dedicated clinicians providing 93 000 additional hours of wellbeing checks and counselling—it is these sorts of pop-up centres that sit alongside the work that we are doing across the entire health system. It is measures like this that include an additional support of $4 million for Aboriginal community controlled organisations, $1 million to expand the Triple P parenting program, $1.2 million to boost the capacity of peak LGBTIQA+ community organisations, a further $1 million to support the mental health workforce to respond to patients presenting with trauma and $1.5 million to allow the Royal Children’s Hospital, VicHealth and key partners to better support the most vulnerable groups of children and young people both now and into the future. This sits alongside the investment that was announced at last year’s budget of $300 million to roll out critical new infant, child and youth area mental health services. That delivers on one of the recommendations of the mental health royal commission, and it also ensures that we are able to expand our youth services capacity and therefore access to services by 14 per cent.

We need to make sure not only that we are aware of the important work of implementing the recommendations of the royal commission and the mental health commissioner but that we know and understand and are not tempted by the desire to engage in narratives that might constitute a sugar hit for certain newspapers, which I will not refer to here and which incidentally I do not read, to in fact seek to argue that mental health is not at the core of what we are doing by way of pandemic and COVID response. The nature of proportionality in the way in which pandemic orders are made and the way in which directives are developed includes a reference to the incursion upon personal rights and liberties of broader health measures and the requirement that it on balance does not outweigh the benefit which is conferred through that public health measure.

What I would suggest to Dr Cumming is that there is ample material already provided, including by reference to the pandemic-specific legislation and the oversight that operates within that context, which we debated extensively here in this place and which is now the subject of a joint investigative committee including members of this place but chaired by the member for Shepparton with a deputy chair in Mr Bourman for Eastern Victoria Region. We want to make sure that we proceed diligently, carefully and with compassion and the appropriate level of resourcing to address the mental health concerns and the issues of mental illness, distress and compromised wellbeing as we recover from this pandemic. As Dr Bach has said, this is not our last pandemic. We need to get better at doing this, and with the benefit of modelling data, information reporting and public disclosure of information we are continuing along that path of improvement. On that basis and for reasons that have been outlined by other speakers, the work proposed by this motion is already being done and a reference is considered not able to be supported by the government as it currently stands.

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (14:25): I am pleased to speak on Dr Cumming’s motion today and indicate that we will in fact be supporting this referral to the Legal and Social Issues Committee. We have been very conscious of the need throughout this pandemic to balance the public health response to the coronavirus against the impacts on the mental health and general health of our population. Of course this is no easy task but something that needs to be a high priority. There have been a number of studies that show just how seriously and widely mental health has been impacted by the pandemic, and constituents in my electorate contact me regularly on these matters.

The Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey, conducted monthly by the ABS from March 2020 to June 2021, reported that the groups with the highest levels of psychological distress were Australians aged between 18 and 34, people living in Victoria and women. The University of Melbourne conducted a weekly Taking the Pulse of the Nation survey through the Melbourne Institute, where 20 per cent of respondents reported feeling depressed or anxious most or all of the time. Employed parents whose youngest child was aged five to 11 years reported higher levels of mental distress than parents of other age cohorts. This tells a real story of how tough the stay-at-home and remote-learning requirements were on members of the workforce with young children.

The Headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey 2020 showed the proportion of young people feeling the impact of a lack of companionship rose to 54 per cent in 2020. Other studies reported that where initial increases in levels of distress reduced again over time there are ongoing challenges for the levels of distress and wellbeing of our society as people struggle with financial uncertainty, being constantly confronted with pandemic-related media, fear and uncertainty about accessing other health care, uncertainty around more homeschooling et cetera.

Mental health is only one component of all of this but something I am personally very passionate about. We know our health system has faced some real challenges in other areas, including hospital ramping, ambulance response times, elective surgery, GP shortages, workforce furlough, vaccination rollouts and much more. That is all very gloomy, but we have an obligation to consider this information and how we can learn from this for future pandemics—as Dr Bach referred to, this certainly will not be our last—and not just from the negatives. We need to see the positives as well, and I hope that this motion will highlight some of the positive responses that we can build and work on that we have faced and learned from within this pandemic. We support Dr Cumming’s motion, and I look forward to participating in this inquiry if her referral is successful today.

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:29): I am pleased to rise to speak to Dr Cumming’s motion, because it is an important one, and Dr Bach has outlined very eloquently to the chamber just how important it is around those very aspects. He knows only too well, being a former teacher, the impacts of the loss of face-to-face learning and the impacts of that dislocation, not being able to have that socialisation, which are such important elements of any child’s education, whether that is in the early years or whether that is in the senior years—incredibly important for anyone.

And what we know from the lockdowns is that they have been enormously detrimental to the Victorian community. Victoria of course had the harshest restrictions of anywhere in Australia and the longest lockdowns—Melbourne had that unenviable title: the longest lockdown period for any city anywhere in the world—yet we have had the worst outcomes of anywhere in Australia. Now, the government can argue all sorts of things, which they continuously do, but those impacts are there to see. This is a government that put curfews on people—and where was the health advice? It did not come from the chief health officer. He admitted that. They banned playgrounds for children, for heaven’s sake. They banned playgrounds. This is a government that has continuously told Victorians what to do and has not taken Victorians with it.

I am very concerned about not just what this government has done throughout the pandemic but what is emerging as we move forward. I am concerned about the argument put by the government in relation to this where they have said that the rebuttal for their non-support of Dr Cumming’s motion is that there has been sufficient focus on the mental health impacts and that this is just a cheap shot—this argument is just a cheap one, I think were the words Ms Shing said. Well, I find that really offensive. The number of suicides—we know even from the coroner: back in December there was an FOI application, and what was released to the Liberals and The Nationals demonstrated that a ministerial briefing did say that the lockdown measures were having an adverse impact on mental health and noted two suicides following the recent lockdown in the context of loss of employment. Now, that was the fourth lockdown, but there were so many more, and there are anecdotal stories that we are all hearing. There is a backlog of cases in the Coroners Court that are looking at this issue.

Dr Bach referenced that very important study by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute which showed that children were struggling with just the basic skills of coping, empathy, making friends, change or disappointment and identifying emotions. These are the real impacts. They are the mental health impacts, the real impacts, and so this is an incredibly important element of Dr Cumming’s motion. As she said, she has got many constituents—we all have. So to call it a cheap argument I think just highlights how the government is cheapening the severity of what we on this side of the house and Dr Cumming through her motion actually want to address. I find it absolutely stunning.

Now, Dr Bach said that I would probably go to point (4) in Dr Cumming’s motion, and I do want to speak to that. There is much in this motion, and there are some very good elements, but I did want on the record the work of my colleague Emma Kealy: the private members bill which she introduced in the lower house and which I introduced here to get those mental health practitioners into schools and unlock those people that could then actually assist Victorians. It was rejected, voted down by the Labor government—and some independents, I might add. It just does go to show how much they are really putting into this. They can write all the cheques they like, but the actions—

Ms Bath: It is on the ground.

Ms CROZIER: It is on the ground, Ms Bath, what really counts, and as a result we have got, I think, a real concern amongst large parts of the emerging generation of young people in Victoria. But to go back to this important point, point (4):

the effects of delays in surgery and diagnostic services, if any, to the Victorian health system and to the health of Victorians

Well, let me look at the health of Victorians, this aspect in this part of this motion. I have been speaking for many, many, many months about the impacts of cancellation of elective surgery. Elective surgery is vital surgery. It is essential surgery. No-one wants surgery, but it is surgery that people need that will improve their quality of life, improve their health outcomes and quite possibly save their life. But what we have got are very, very critical delays that are causing people’s health to deteriorate. Their health conditions are worsening, so they are getting sicker and they are going to be needing more urgent surgery. Some of those category 2s, I want to know how many of them have moved into category 1. How many category 1s have not got their surgery and have actually died?

I think Victorians need to know those figures—and I am hoping the government will not spend 19 months like they have and finally get to my questions that I have put in questions on notice on this and have that in a far more reasonable time than 19 months, as I have just received more in the last few days—because these are the impacts for Victorians. And elective surgery waitlists: as I say, it is essential surgery, ballooning out to over 80 000—80 000 Victorians—waiting on essential surgery waitlists. Well, that is not even counting the people who are waiting to get onto the waitlist—there are probably double that and more. And then we have got a ballooning waitlist in the private system because of the government’s code brown and bans on surgery. This ideological push from this government is extraordinary. They are not only strangling the state, just slowly, with their economic decisions, which are killing this state, but they are also squeezing the very elements that support Victorians into getting their healthcare needs delivered.

The private system is incredibly important as well as the public system, to support the public system, and for the life of me I do not understand why this Minister for Health and this ideologically driven Premier do not understand the code brown and the aspect of just putting these blanket bans in place with no understanding of how a hospital system works or how hospital administrators actually manage their own hospitals. They say to me, ‘There is capacity in the system. We can do more. We should be doing more. We want to be doing more for our patients’.

This government is failing Victorians every single day—they have every single day over the past two years. I despair of where our state is heading with this administration because of the secrecy, the cover-up, the refusal to accept expert health advice—because I know there are many true health experts who work in the system who have been advising the minister, and he is ignoring that. He is ignoring that advice that says this elective surgery should not be banned, it should resume. This minister has a lot to answer for. This Premier has even more to answer for. I do not blame the health minister all that much because he is only taking the lead from his leader, the Premier, who is an appalling leader.

Dr Bach: He’s a shocker.

Ms CROZIER: He is a shocker. I do not think he has led this state at all well. In fact I think he is taking this state backwards. This motion is so important in terms of looking at the issues around the physical and mental health of Victorians, whether it is children or whether it is adults who are waiting for surgery, and we need to hear from those Victorians. This motion to get that inquiry to do that will enable that to occur.

On the pandemic committee, I heard Ms Shing talk about that. Well, you know, there are four Labor members on that and two independents, and there are three of us over here, two Libs and a Nat. Well, the whole state can see where that is going. So I was very pleased I was able to do what I did last week with Professor Sutton, who said he did not provide advice on some mandates, on the reversal of surgery bans and on a whole lot of other issues.

Sadly I have run out of time. I have got so much more I could say on this important motion. I urge the government to support it.

Mr MELHEM (Western Metropolitan) (14:39): I also rise to speak on the motion by Dr Cumming. I think we can look at the motion itself and the issues Dr Cumming wants to explore in the committee and the various points in her motion in relation to mental health, suicide numbers, hospital admissions and waiting lists. I think all these issues are good issues that we should all be mindful of in making sure that they have been addressed, but there are a couple of points here. One is that we are in a pandemic, a pandemic I do not think anyone created—not in this chamber anyway, not in this country. It is a worldwide pandemic which is putting huge strain and huge pressure on our hospital system. Last time I heard the health minister, I think a few days ago, over a few thousand medical professionals are actually at home and cannot work because of COVID restrictions.

It is like trying to paint a picture that we are living in a perfect environment: there is no pandemic, there is no COVID-19. We do not have thousands and thousands of cases every day, and basically the government is sitting idle, not investing in hospitals, not doing anything—that is why we are creating these problems. I think Ms Crozier talked about the amount of people who have suicided because of mental health et cetera and because of the pandemic. It is a real issue, and it is something that we are concerned about. One suicide is one too many. But the coroner in fact, from memory, has said that suicides in 2021 actually were less than in the previous year even though it was during a pandemic. I think the numbers were 35—and as I said, 35 too many. So there are less suicides according to the coroner, but Ms Crozier is saying that there are not. If people want to come in here and debate issues, let us stick to the facts instead of just making up things as we go.

There is definitely an issue. There is definitely a strain on the system. Yes, waiting periods for elective surgery are going up—80 000. It was 50 000 last year. We had to make the hard decision on elective surgery. We did that last year when we had the lockdowns. It is not uncommon. Every state in Australia is facing the exact situation. It is not unique to Victoria. It is not even unique to Australia. There is a major problem. We will need to play a lot of catch-up hopefully when the pandemic is brought under control. The minister and the Premier announced a few days ago that elective surgery now will go to 50 per cent capacity, and hopefully as we have better control of the outbreak we may be able to open up more and more and invest a lot of money into the health system to make sure we are able to get elective surgery underway. We do not want to see anyone waiting for surgery, especially when we talk about category 1 and urgent surgeries. In fact my understanding is that over 30 000 elective surgeries were performed in private hospitals in recent times on behalf of the public hospital system, so we are actually doing whatever we can to make sure that we address these issues. There is pressure in a pandemic on Ambulance Victoria. They are doing a terrific job.

The problem I have with this motion is that it is not about saying that these problems do not exist. They do. The question is: what we are doing about them? I believe our health professionals are doing a fantastic job trying to cope in the current circumstances. The Department of Health is working in overdrive with the public and private hospitals. The government is putting a lot of money into the system as well and trying to do what it can to take the pressure off. It is not like we are not doing anything. We are doing a lot of stuff.

Now, a parliamentary committee wants to look at how we are going, how we are performing and whether we are doing our job as a government, and that is fair enough. I have got no issue with that. I think that is what Parliament is there for—to make sure it holds the executive to account. There has been a lot of debate in this chamber for the past two years about an oversight committee, about the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee holding hearings, about various other committees, about references to various committees. Last year after a lengthy debate there was an agreement that the Parliament would have a joint investigatory committee to basically specifically look at the pandemic issue. If Dr Cumming and the opposition want to look at how the government is performing and how those various departments are performing, that committee is the perfect body to do that. It was specifically established on the resolution of both houses of Parliament, and there is wide representation on that investigatory committee from both houses—from the government, from the opposition, from crossbenchers. It is very well resourced, in my understanding, with people specifically resourced to look at specific issues in relation to pandemics.

What I do not like is that we come here sometimes and just grandstand: ‘Okay, you can do one thing, I can do one better’ type of thing. ‘I’ll put motion after motion and reference after reference just for the record to show I’ve done something’. So if you are fair dinkum about this, this should be going to that joint committee, which is charged with looking at pandemic-related matters, not the Legal and Social Issues Committee, which is already inundated with references and resources and is not going to be able to deal with this anyway. So we will vote on this one, and then it goes to that committee. Then it will go down the list, and by the time they get to it probably the election will have happened and nothing happens. The point I am making here is this: if we are fair dinkum about this, that reference should be made to the joint investigatory committee—that is the correct committee—and let it actually deal with that. That is where it should be. It is just a piece of advice. It is what we should have done in the first place. But anyway, I will leave that to Dr Cumming and the opposition.

I just want to finish off in the last 2 minutes that I have got by actually praising our health workers, first responders and teachers and all the public servants and all the organisations that are actually out there helping day in, day out the people of Victoria to be able to manage through this horrible, horrible disease, helping not just the people who are directly affected by COVID—and now we have got hundreds of thousands of Victorians who have contracted COVID; I am one of them, and I am still suffering from it—but also helping the people on the waiting list, helping the people who basically need medical treatment. There is a lot of strain on the system, and as I said, a few thousand—I think it was over 2000—health workers basically are not able to go to work. We have got a major problem. In order to fix the problem you need three things: you need the hospitals, you need the beds and you need the people to run them, and we have got a major crisis trying to attract and get people in to be able to balance all these issues.

The issue about mental health—I do not think the government should be lectured about this. The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System handed down its report back in 2018. We have accepted that, and we have implemented every single recommendation or are in the process of doing so. It is the biggest investment in the country’s history in trying to address mental health in this state and in this country. We are playing catch-up—we are all playing catch-up—in that we can do more, but at least we are doing it. I do not see any contribution or any real effort from the Liberal Party or the National Party. In particular I am referring to the federal government. They basically talk the talk. We are actually not talking the talk, we are walking the walk. The Premier stood up in the exhibition building and basically said, ‘We’re going to implement every single recommendation of the royal commission into mental health’, because it is a real issue. Kids are suffering and adults are suffering during the pandemic.

We have got a big job to do, and we are doing it, so come on board and support that. Let us be a bit more positive instead of negative and basically putting motions: ‘I’ve got a motion on the notice paper for it to go to a committee which is not going to go anywhere’. So if you are fair dinkum, write to the joint investigatory committee and let them deal with that issue. That is why I will not be voting for the motion, not because of what the motion stands for but because to me it is just a political stunt—no more.

Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:49): I am pleased as the member of The Nationals in this place to throw my support behind Dr Cumming’s motion 692 for a reference to the Legal and Social Issues Committee to investigate the list—and it is a very extensive list and it is a very serious list—of issues that have faced Victorians in their homes, in their schools, in our hospital sector, in our mental health sector, in a raft of places. One of the things that I often hear, and I think it is justified, is that MPs when they come into this place somehow become aloof, devoid of reality, and sometimes people coming in here have not even had a grounding in the real world in the first place. What we do not want in this place is to only receive information from certain sectors—from government departments, who really quite often can provide information that is not the true, clear facts of what is going on. What I have seen in my time working in committees is the value of having real people with real-life experiences, real scientists—not lobbyists, but scientists—health experts, educational experts, principals and parents from regional Victoria, and regional Victorians often feel overlooked. Having those voices of people who have experienced mental health issues or had their family member have significant mental health issues—I am sure that they could teach each and every one of us as members of Parliament in this place some eye-opening facts about what is going on. For that reason and because of the great depth of need for this to be investigated and for some clarity around these issues I will certainly be supporting this motion.

We have just heard Mr Melhem talking about the upper house committees and perhaps devaluing the level at which they can investigate. We have seen in the lower house just yesterday the result of a motion that came from me and was accepted in this house by all sides, except for a few minor independents. We held an inquiry that had extensive commentary from all sides of the discussion. There was a huge delay in it—over two years—but the minister has brought in a recommendation in a bill that has been passed in the lower house and then will be in this house. So there can be powerful outcomes from recommendations of upper house committees.

Among the things that I would like to touch on—and there are some huge issues here—are surgery and diagnostic services. I will read out something that has just come in to me from a constituent only a week ago. She comes from my electorate, naturally, from the town of Morwell. I will not read her name, but I will read what she has written:

I would like to ask you to bring up the fact that people who need Elective surgery are not getting it and are becoming extremely worried. Someone I love has a tumor and they won’t do the surgery for a biopsy because it is labelled as a number 3. It is getting worse and I am worried. Please, other people are dying because they can’t have Elective surgery. We need you to stand up for us and ensure people get the care they need.

These are the very real things that we get, the voices of people that we get in our offices communicating with us.

Another one is a slightly good story because after a terrible, anguishing time the patient got that bad that his very good surgeon pushed uphill and got him the hip replacement that he needed. But back in 2020 my constituent was in intense pain and had to have a hip replacement. His surgeon said, ‘We’ll book it in’, and it was over the period of the next 12 months cancelled four times. This is because of the government’s ban on elective surgery. This is not some lightweight piece of surgery. This, as Ms Crozier has just said, is essential surgery. We have seen many other doctors come out on social media having that same conversation. He was placed on weekly morphine patches and 4-hourly painkillers. He was in crippling pain. Over a 12-month period he lost about a quarter of his body weight—20 kilograms—because he just could not cope with the pain and could not eat. The medication was stifling him and his digestive system. So his great surgeon, as I said, and his doctor have pushed and pushed and pushed, and finally he tipped over from being elective to an emergency situation.

I bring this to you because he has come to me saying, ‘I don’t want other people to be in this position’. Well, we do not want—The Nationals and the Liberals certainly do not—other people to be in this position.

Mrs McArthur interjected.

Ms BATH: Rightly Mrs McArthur has just said they are in their thousands. There are many other examples. I want to go now and give some statistics for the house about the comparison between Victoria and New South Wales, because if you believe the government, the government is just saying it is happening across the nation: ‘We’re doing our best. We’re doing a wonderful job’. Well, let us look at some statistics that have come out by virtue of the Report on Government Services. Now, this is a very comprehensive analysis of the tale, in this case, of two states. If we look at the year 2020–21, 38 per cent of designated emergency patients arriving at an emergency department were not seen within the national benchmark period. Now, this has increased in its status from the previous year. So there are a lot of people not getting that emergency care when they need it. Our hospitals are under pressure. Our emergency departments are under pressure. Staff work at their absolute maximum capacity, and in fact I know that they do double shifts sometimes because shifts cannot be filled. This government needs to have prioritised health over many, many years. In fact the Premier has been in charge of the state or its health system 11 out of the last 15 years.

The next lot of statistics: in 2020–21 almost 45 per cent of category 2 patients on the elective surgery waitlist had their wait periods extended, like my constituent, beyond the recommended 90 days. That is 45 per cent for Victoria. Let us compare New South Wales: only 4.3 per cent of category 2 patients face a wait time over 90 days. That is the tale of two states. We could also look to other interesting and quite challenging aspects, because at the bottom line of this it is challenging for the patients—Victorians—but it is also challenging for those people providing those services.

Ambulance response times: alarmingly, when every second counts, in 2020–21 one in 10 Victorians who called for an ambulance response had their emergency calls processed within the recommended 10 seconds. That is one in 10. If we go to New South Wales, it is much better. By contrast, New South Wales had 200 000 more calls yet were able to deal with 94 per cent of calls within that time. So we see a really important differentiation. Why is that? Because, again from these factual documents, the statistics tell us less is being spent in Victoria on the public hospitals, as I have just said. Victoria is spending $2687 per person, well below the national average of $2971. There is a disparity here between government funding and the importance government places on our wellbeing—on our physical health but, significantly, on our mental health.

I just want to congratulate our Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Emma Kealy. She has forensically investigated the depths of the situation in Victoria of our mental health services. She is fighting hard, as we should fight hard, to seek better outcomes particularly in my patch for country Victorians but for Victorians across the board. This needs to be properly investigated. Let real people provide the voice so that we can make real recommendations. I support the motion.

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (14:59): I will be brief. New evidence is mounting against lockdowns. Research from Johns Hopkins shows the harms caused by lockdowns are more severe and the benefits less clear than the government wants us to believe. This committee referral is to get the government to relook at and acknowledge the harms of COVID-19, including its response. I am hopeful that lockdowns are behind us—but we have all been there before, and there has always been another lockdown. We can expect the government to trot something out when we get the upcoming winter’s COVID spike and a new variant.

As part of the COVID response our government shut down elective surgeries and reallocated health resources away from other areas and towards COVID. We have yet to account for the damage this has done. Current estimates show that it is likely to have cost thousands of lives and a great deal of additional suffering that could have otherwise been prevented. Reduction in cancer screenings alone is expected to continue to cost lives in late presentations of cancer over the coming years. The cost in education is mounting too. A few weeks of remote learning is disruptive. Years of constant disruptions will leave an entire generation of students behind where they should be.

I am doubtful that the time lost to lockdowns can ever be made up, but Victorians deserve to know that their government is at least aware of the costs of their actions. Transparency is something that Victorians desperately need and something that this government appears to be allergic to. The Liberal Democrats will support this motion.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (15:01): In summing up it is pretty clear that the government has no will to be transparent or accountable for what they have done in the last two years during this pandemic, to show the health advice that the community so wants to have brought forward or to actually allow the community to come forward with their concerns of the past two years. It really shows the government up today—to actually come in here and try to make out that this motion is a political stunt. Shame on you. Shame on you for not listening to the community, who want this inquiry, who want a royal commission, who want to be heard.

And shame on any of the others on this crossbench who would not support this motion today, for their own wants and needs—and they are minor ones, mind you. I hear that there are some on the crossbench that might not support this today due to their own self-referring to this committee, which is just about scheduling—not the merits of this motion, not the desires of this community. Maybe those same crossbenchers who supported the government with the state of emergency and the pandemic bill do not want what they supported to come to light to show their errors. For me, you learn from your mistakes. That is what I was hoping for, that the community would actually know: were the lockdowns needed? I could say categorically time will show you: no. Was mandating necessary? No, government. You had 80 per cent before 15 October, and now you are trying to mandate a third jab, micromanaging the community to a point where you are going to have less and less employees and Victoria is going to be less attractive to come to. And let us talk about the police response during the pandemic. Wouldn’t it be great to actually have some knowledge around that so that you would not make the same mistakes in the future? The police did not want to be used in that way in the last two years, for a health response.

Shame on this government for not wanting this inquiry, but shame on any of my fellow members on this crossbench that would not support this on its merits, knowing that what they are wanting to achieve in this committee can be achieved in a small time frame; it is just a matter of scheduling. But do not worry, the community will not forget that this government does not want to answer questions, does not want to be accountable and does not want to be transparent. Where is the health advice? Why can’t you come forward with that? Why wouldn’t you want to improve things for the next nine months plus, for the next wave? Where are our COVID-safe kits? Where are our hospital beds? Good luck.

House divided on motion:

Motion negatived.