Tuesday, 22 February 2022

Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (11:55): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, can you confirm that on some nights in January of this year there were only three call takers in ESTA to service the entire state of over 6.6 million Victorians?

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (11:56): Whilst I do not have the operational information at hand, nor is it appropriate for me to have the details of rostering arrangements, more than three people were rostered on in relation to shifts.

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (11:56): Thank you for that response, Minister. I am astounded that you are not across the detail of this very vital area, where there are just so many issues. So I also ask you: can you confirm that some callers had to wait for over 20 minutes until their call was answered by 000, and how many calls has that applied to? If you do not know the answer, may I ask that it be taken on notice.

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (11:56): Ms Crozier, it might have been better if that was your first question, because—

Ms Crozier: I can ask a question how I like.

Ms SYMES: It is only that I have got less time to answer it. It is fine; we can do this again next question if you would like. In relation to the call-taking capacity at ESTA, we know that they have been hit by unprecedented demand—we have many calls that should not be going to 000—and they hold themselves to an extremely high standard. The recommended benchmark is to answer 90 per cent of calls within 5 seconds. When you consider that in October 2020 the average calls to ambulance alone per day was 3000, in January it got up to 4000 and we are now hovering around the 3800 mark, they are still striving for that benchmark and many, many calls are answered in that time frame. But in relation to delays, it is not something that I have sought to hide and ESTA have not sought to hide. There have been unacceptable delays at certain points throughout recent times, and we continue to provide support to those hardworking staff.