Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Bills
Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021
Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021
Second reading
Debate resumed on motion of Ms PULFORD:
That the bill be now read a second time.
Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (15:25): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021. This is a bill that the opposition does not oppose and sees some considerable merit in. In summary the bill provides a new mechanism to empower Service Victoria to deliver a range of public services ranging across government agencies and departments and so forth; to expand the services and functions that Service Victoria is able to deliver to a broader range of services as well as ones that loop in certain ones from other jurisdictions and the commonwealth, potentially; to support the digital transformation across government and the use of digital tokens and to allow customers to use a Service Victoria credentialled electronic identity; and also to enable Service Victoria to hold the various agency data and allow various agencies and departments to access that storage capacity that is involved; and to do something about the need for data protections and the consistency of data protection across Service Victoria.
The last bill actually was an interesting introduction, with some of the minister’s comments at the end there about the period over the last two years, the challenges that have been faced by businesses and others across the community and the increasing role of digital services through that period. The last bill also talked about matters around tourism and the events sector. All of these are examples of sectors that through this two-year period or 2½-year period have faced under COVID various challenges—and I, like others who spoke on that last bill, was on the inquiry looking at tourism and events and looking at the incredible challenges faced by small businesses in both those sectors and the burden that was placed on them by government requirements. Some of the government requirements were legitimate and some were not—and there was certainly a significant minority report written by the Liberals and Nationals on that committee that laid out a number of the weaknesses of that inquiry—but leaving that aside, my point in raising that and picking up the minister’s point at the end of that last bill is that one of the things that COVID I think has done is to point to the importance of the digital economy and the ability to get a lot of government services where possible onto the digital platforms to enable people to access them and to do that in a cost-effective way, a way that does not drive people barmy. The quality of digital services is actually an incredibly important aspect, and to the extent that this bill seeks to remedy some of the clunkiness, the slowness and the difficulty of accessing some digital services, we welcome those steps and see these as matters that really at a deeper level are bipartisan to actually make sure that that access is possible.
I do think there is a long way to go, and I do not think Victoria can hold its head up high through a lot of this. We were very slow—very slow—to get QR codes and other matters functioning. Ms Taylor looks askance, but she will remember the questions—the repeated questions in this chamber—from the opposition as the government lagged behind New South Wales and other jurisdictions in putting in place some of those QR code issues. Some of that I think was a policy decision by government, but part of it at least was driven by the tardiness of the bureaucracy and the inability to take the sorts of digital steps that were needed. I am not pretending any of this is easy, because it is clearly not. There is clearly an interesting balance to be struck inside the bureaucracy of government between having a knowledgeable secretariat—a knowledgeable set of bureaucrats inside the department—and the use of external consultants. The balance there has to be got right, and I will say little bit more about that in a few moments.
I do not think this government had the capacity inside government, and I do not think the digital services aspect in Victoria has been remotely up to where best practice is around the world. When you look across the jurisdictions in Australia, I think you are naturally drawn to the capacity of New South Wales and the service app in New South Wales, with the interface across the whole of government and the interface into parts of the community. I think that is a role model for us where we can see a better way forward and where Victoria, to be frank, has not kept pace. Now, there are lots of reasons for that, and I do not put all of those at the feet of the current government, although I do note the failure of the Labor governments over the last two decades to come forward properly with IT proposals and mechanisms. You only need to look at the period between 2007 and 2010, when the current Premier was health minister; he got himself in all sorts of trouble with digital matters. The HealthSMART system was an absolute fiasco in our hospital system, and there were issues of data transparency and protection of data.
Ms Shing: Back to the bill.
Mr DAVIS: No, this is about the bill. This is actually about the data, and it is actually about the implementation of IT systems and the data protections that go around them. IT systems are often open to manipulation, and in that case we saw examples of that, Ms Shing. If you would like me to go down memory lane there, I could do so in great detail, with the FOIs that we had about the now Premier’s failure to implement the HealthSMART system.
Ms Shing: Again, come on. Go to the bill.
Mr DAVIS: Well, no, it is entirely reasonable to talk about the implementation of data systems and IT systems across government. The general point I was making, as you well know, is that governments have a very spotty record when it comes to introducing complex IT systems and complex data systems. Some of the most complex are those that have these consumer interfaces, which our digital services economy demands increasingly and in which Victoria has actually lagged. I think it is worth putting on record some of the commentary about New South Wales.
Again, we welcome some of the steps in this bill. We are not opposing the bill; we are actually saying that there are useful steps in it. We do have some reservations, and I will come to those in a minute. But the point I would make here is that the work of Victor Dominello in New South Wales initially as Minister for Customer Service and as Minister for Digital I think is the lead example in the country. He said the current and former premiers gave him the licence to conduct major reform—‘You had me at data, Victor’. That was premiers Baird and Berejiklian, and I think the same is true of Dominic Perrottet regarding the focus that has come from those three premiers in supporting Victor Dominello in his steps to bring New South Wales data systems into the lead in the 21st century. His particular focus: pre the pandemic, 100 000 people used the Service NSW account; today the app has over 6.5 million regular users. The digital drivers licence was launched in 2016 with what the minister called a garden customer matter—that is an interesting point. I have lost a sentence here, but he went through the steps that he took. I sourced this article from the Australian on 28 October 2021. He read the feedback comments, and he actually understood the strengths of some of these apps and the usage of the system and was able to make the changes and refine the system to bring it to a point where it was able to deliver for the community in New South Wales. Now, Victoria did catch up on some of this, but we were quite a way behind.
It is actually interesting to make the point here on cybersecurity. New South Wales again I think is in the lead. He also looks at these digital techniques as ways of strengthening the ability to look at sovereign procurement and build capacity in that way, so there is a series of uses to which these can be put. You know, the opposition is very focused on what we can do as a community to recover and rebuild. That is the document we launched just a week or so ago, and we are looking at how we can position the state. There was a series of very practical, thoughtful suggestions in our program, in our plan, to look at some of that procurement and to look at how we can actually build forward. That is where we have got to go.
Now, I know New South Wales has looked at a Digital Restart Fund and I think that this was a clever way to go. They have put more and more services online, and I think most of us recognise the strength of those points of putting things online. Again to pick up some examples: the Park’nPay approach—not only the QR codes—and the liquor licensing portal in New South Wales. I have had this demonstrated to me. I have had people from New South Wales show me the management of these licensing systems—the simple renewal-of-licence approaches that have been operating there—as well as some of the dining and other applications that have been put in place. We want to rebuild and recover. We have got to do that by clever techniques. We have talked about manufacturing, we have talked about a number of other key steps going forward, but these digital economy approaches are a very significant part of it.
I make the point that Mr Dominello has again been the one who has been prepared to innovate and to use the capacity inside the government department. Again I come back to the point I made before about having capacity within government departments so that you can maximise the use of your consultancy support and not be totally reliant on consultants, who will often see a government department or a minister coming and will be able to make significant money out of them but not necessarily deliver what is needed in the community interest. I think that point of balancing internal capacity inside a department and the role of external consultants is particularly important in this area of the digital economy.
I want to just lay out some of the concerns though that the opposition has. To deliver certain circumstances, there are instances where the creation of a Service Victoria account is necessary. It is worth noting that an account does not have to be digitally created on every occasion. That may be the best way at most times, but we need to look at each one on its own point. There needs to be a focus on consent and supporting digital access. There also needs to be a focus on privacy too, and I do not want in any way to accuse the government of doing the wrong thing here, but I actually think there has got to be privacy at the heart of these approaches because it actually builds confidence in the use of these digital systems. That privacy needs to be absolutely front and centre, and I do not think that that has always been the case. I do not think that people have had the confidence there.
I do want to say one other thing. There is a section of the community, and I think mainly older people, who for whatever reason are unable or unwilling to engage with the digital economy. I was talking to a group of older people just recently at a Probus group, and there was a real divide in that group between those who were very much adopters of digital technology and those who were not. There is a group who are not, and we have to find a way to make sure that they are not outright and frankly disadvantaged. This is actually an issue of equity. We need to make sure that they are not really left behind. I do not absolve the commonwealth of responsibility here, and I can point to some terrible examples where people have not been able to get commonwealth services because they have not been able to engage digitally. That has not been their fault; ultimately it has been the fault of an agency that has not been prepared to be flexible enough to assist people, and we have had a bit of that even at a state level through the COVID period. The task is to be service orientated, and as more and more options migrate to the digital world we need to make sure that there is assistance to people to access them. You know, you still need in my view proper access by phone, because people sometimes need to be talked through how to access things. I suspect we have all had that thing where you are trying to do something digitally and you get to a block point and you just simply do not know how to get beyond it. But for older people, they sometimes get to that point and they give up, and thereby what is increasingly happening is they are being denied services, they are being denied pensions, they are being denied financial and other support, and that is not the right way forward. So I am all for pushing this economy forward.
A member interjected.
Mr DAVIS: No, no, this is actually a serious point, and if we think carefully amongst the people that we know—family members and broader community members—there are people that we know who are like that and who will not get access to services unless there is a more old-fashioned mechanism to enable them to access those services. It is a bit more complex, and there has got to be a dual-track approach so that people are not left behind and disadvantaged. This is actually, as I say, a matter of basic equity, and we have got to be very careful with those points.
But I do want to return to my central point. There are learnings out of this period under COVID, and there is an opportunity for us as a community to expand our digital approaches further. This bill does provide some opportunities to do that. To the extent that it does that we support it. I have laid out my concerns and things that need to be addressed. I think that that is legitimate. But I think it is also important to realise that when we look at other examples around the country and around the world Victoria is not a shining example of a digital paradise where most things can happen online seamlessly. In fact we have to our north in New South Wales a far more advanced model which we should be prepared to learn from, and I think that that is the salient point out of this section of the economy that is going to become increasingly important as we go forward.
Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (15:44): There is a lot in this bill that I want to cover today, but before doing that I would quite like to go to a number of the points which Mr Davis has raised in his contribution, a number of which—and this will surprise punters—I actually do not disagree with. What he has done is identify a number of themes and indeed blockages in accessing outcomes as part of a contemporary society and as part of a society which is increasingly reliant upon digital transactions in order to access services, in order to access outcomes and in order to gain efficient, swift and consistent outcomes as far as participation is concerned—everything from accessing a working with children check to getting a fishing licence to uploading a vaccination certificate. We do need to be therefore mindful of the challenges we face in improving and addressing issues of equity and issues of remedial assistance to make sure that we have twin streams of access as part of our transformation to a digital economy.
To that end I thank Mr Davis for identifying this in the course of his contribution, because what he has done is he has given me an opportunity to talk to a number of the areas where Service Victoria has indeed been exceptionally agile and incredibly dexterous in the way in which it has partnered with other parts of government and service providers to make sure that wherever possible people who need access to those services—unlike the examples which Mr Davis referred to on welfare and commonwealth interfaces to access minimum payments—in a Victorian sense are able to do that when and as they need, particularly for people who are perhaps not technologically literate or who do not have the means to have the necessary contracts or access to accounts in order to transact in the way that others do. That work does go on, and that is in fact part of the digital strategy which we are working on in earnest within this government to effect a range of changes; to make sure that there is the appropriate level of engagement, consultation and indeed funding; and to make sure that we are also in the course of that work mindful of privacy protection principles, mindful of the way in which we become ever more sophisticated in linking and relying upon data to transact our daily lives and in making sure that we are also in the best possible position to manage, to fend off and to minimise challenges associated, for example, with the pandemic and recovery—for example, the way in which digital tokens operate—and to make sure that we are in a position to continue to evolve and to break down barriers associated with other jurisdictions where different platforms may be in play.
Mr Davis has made a fair degree of I would say confected outrage—but he probably would disagree with me on the use of that descriptor—around the work that New South Wales has done as compared with Victoria. And I want to just place on the record my thanks to all at Service Victoria who have worked so hard—and my thanks to all at Digital Victoria within the Department of Premier and Cabinet and across government—to make sure, for example, that vaccination certificates were available weeks ahead of New South Wales or indeed the commonwealth here in Victoria, that digital identities were able to be accessed and uploaded as a matter of urgency and also that privacy protection principles as they relate to the collection, management and non-retention of data were managed.
I think there is a fair bit of misinformation in what Mr Davis has said in that regard that I just want to make sure does not sit untested in Hansard, simply because there is a lot of work going on to make sure not only that we are mindful of the challenges and minefields associated with digital information and the exchange of data as part of transacting, verifying and acquitting obligations as government but also that we are in a position to do so in an economically responsible way, in a way which addresses challenges associated with procurement and also in a way which delivers the best possible set of outcomes for the most number of people here in Victoria at any given time.
Cybersecurity, as Mr Davis has pointed out, is another area of significant interest to this government. As Parliamentary Secretary for Government Services it has been a privilege to be part of the cybersecurity work that is taking place under Minister Pearson alongside the digital strategy work overall, which is intended to make sure that Victoria can invest in and take advantage of the leaps and bounds of the digital economy here in Victoria to create job opportunities, including through the Digital Jobs fund. Mr Davis would be aware that the $60 million which he unfortunately failed to mention in his contribution earlier but which stands on the record as our commitment to making sure that the digital and electronic space as far as AI, machine learning and indeed digital transactions are concerned is something that we prioritise as part of economic development and jobs growth over time. This has a very natural place alongside making sure that within the public service we are taking active account of the way in which government transacts not just with citizens in the way in which they provide their data and information on the one hand but with others who may receive that information and government as it may transact that information internally.
Mr Davis would be aware, as many millions of Victorians would be aware, of the sheer depth of the Service Victoria app and the way in which that operates. I do not intend to go into COVID check-ins today, because they do not form strictly part of the remit of this bill, but what I do want to note is the extraordinary capacity of this system to hold up under extreme pressure. Unlike the delays that we saw in New South Wales and in the commonwealth as they related to the upload of vaccination certificates, we have been able to continue with a plethora of different access points and opportunities for digital verification, for use of accounts and for transactions which, as I mentioned earlier, sit alongside practical opportunities for people without access to digital devices or accounts to be able to, for example, in the situation of a fishing licence, head along to Kmart to get that licence or indeed, as it relates to an NDIS process, to be able to access that through offline physical and in-person opportunities. So it is a combination of different factors that brings us here to this bill today, and there are a number of things which I want to perhaps delve into a little bit more deeply with the time that I have available to me.
It is really a tale of the evolution of two systems that I want to draw people’s attention to at the moment. I do not know whether people will remember, because there are certain amongst us who have done their utmost to make sure that we forget, that there was a COVIDSafe app back in the dim, distant mists of time. It was about $9 million or $10 million, and it was funded by the current federal government. It was intended to assist people with a swift complement to contact-tracing efforts. What we saw in reality was that this system failed to make a dent, failed to actually gain any traction and uptake, failed to generate any form of social licence and failed therefore to have any practical use for the $9 million or $10 million of taxpayers funding that went into that program. Now, if ever there was an example of consultants fees going to waste because the brief was not properly issued, that is it. It is unfortunate that in his contribution Mr Davis did not refer to that as being the horror story associated with what not to do.
What we have seen in contradistinction to the COVIDSafe app and to that failed effort to connect people with digital technology to improve public safety is the Service Vic app and the way in which we worked to deliver QR codes, border permits, travel vouchers, outdoor economy vouchers, check-ins and more. When there were vouchers issued, over a 5-minute period 10 000 transactions took place, and millions of border permits were issued through this capacity and the Service Victoria app as well. The way in which we also rose to the challenge through Digital Victoria and through the team that works at the heart of delivering these reforms to make sure that we could go live with functionality to add the COVID-19 vaccination certificates to the app put us well ahead of other jurisdictions. Mr Davis has talked extensively about Minister Dominello in the New South Wales government, who also has a really demonstrated passion and a desire to make sure that at a state level people in New South Wales have access to good data, good information and good opportunities for consistent outcomes.
What a shame, however, that we in the states have been let down time and time again by a commonwealth refusal to get on board with the importance of harmonising different systems, making sure that they can in fact talk to each other, minimising the delays and downtime associated with that and working to make sure, for example, that the Australian immunisation register is in fact complementary with the way in which vaccination certificates operate at a state level. We saw shambolic efforts from the commonwealth as it related to international arrivals and to no capacity or indeed appetite from federal authorities to check certificates, which were in fact made available at the point of sale but not then followed up following arrival. We have seen multiple bureaucratic bungles at different levels of government which have been to the detriment of people arriving in Australia and of people seeking to access various outcomes or indeed services or offerings within the national jurisdiction.
What we have done here, however, is to make sure that check-in and vaccination status were combined within the Service Vic app, such that if you go into a restaurant now or indeed you have at any other point in time and you are amongst the 95 per cent of Victorians whose vaccinations are up-to-date, you can in fact simply be asked to show your little green tick on the Service Vic app and then you are good to go. It sounds simple. It sounds as though it is a really straightforward process, and indeed at a user interface level it is. But what we should not and indeed cannot ignore is the amount of work that has gone on behind the scenes on all of the questions associated with data protection, with privacy, with ease-of-use and with consistency of operation across the various platforms to make sure that Service Victoria’s reach, whilst it increases, remains consistent in its quality.
So we want to make sure in the delivery of services as our digital transformation continues and as we roll out the digital strategy and work towards better awareness of cybersecurity, including on the important points of data ethics and the way in which we define how data is gathered, managed and not retained, that we are continuing with consultation across the board. These things do not happen in isolation. We know, for example, that the robodebt situation, where algorithms were developed without any pinch points to enable human interface with decisions on alleged Centrelink debts, had the most tragic of outcomes, the most tragic of consequences, and it is precisely this worst-case scenario which this bill is working towards not just avoiding but preventing.
I would like to thank those stakeholders who have been frank and fearless in the process of their feedback and the way in which we have considered privacy and legal consequences for the passing of this particular bill. That includes government departments; Victoria Police, and key partner service agencies of Service Victoria, so that is VicRoads, births, deaths and marriages, the Victorian Fisheries Authority, the Victorian information commissioner, the health complaints commissioner, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, the commonwealth Digital Transformation Agency and Department of Home Affairs, and privacy and legal sector stakeholders, which have variously included the law institute, the privacy foundation, as well as Electronic Frontiers Australia and Privacy Australia.
So these significant gains in efficiency and in the integrity of information as it is gathered and as it is used to effect better public outcomes are part of the way in which we are seeking to enhance and to build upon the passage of the Service Victoria Act and the commencement of Service Vic as part of a really significant suite of reforms in the digital economy. We have got a long way to go, but having said that we have made leaps and bounds that are putting us well ahead of other jurisdictions and providing us with an opportunity to share what we have developed in a way that means that we can encourage and facilitate and indeed deliver the best possible outcomes for all Victorians in a variety of different ways that make a fundamental difference to the way in which their lives are as streamlined, as efficiently lived and supported as possible and, at the very heart of it all, driven by a sense of equity, of fairness and of opportunity. On that basis, I commend the bill to the house.
Sitting suspended 3.59 pm until 4.18 pm.
Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:18): I rise to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021. This is a pretty straightforward bill, and I will be supporting it today. I wonder how many people realise the number of services Victorians can access on the Service Victoria app. Of course we all use it for checking in, but you can also apply for a fishing licence, a working with children check and other similar services. I would like to see a bit more advertising about the services available on the app, as my impression after speaking with people is that these services go largely unnoticed.
This bill will enable the Service Victoria app to offer even more government services, making it a one-stop shop for all your bureaucratic needs, eventually. Of course, I hope that this bill can lead to greater efficiencies in our lives. One thing Victoria has been behind on is a digital identity framework. For instance, in New South Wales licences and identifications can be stored on phones, while we continue to have a physical card we must take with us. With any changes it is important that the physical identity card remains easily available for those who may feel less comfortable with the new technology. It is my understanding that Victoria Police have the capabilities to check digital licensing but VicRoads does not.
In the commercial passenger vehicle industry we also seem plagued with both duplications and inconsistencies. For example, our driver accreditation and vehicle accreditation processes require that we go to both VicRoads and Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria, which is a time-consuming, unnecessary process and a duplication of services. One would have thought it would be more appropriate for them to be joined together. I hope that in creating a digital identity framework we can ensure that the application process is streamlined, accessible and accepted by all government agencies. I commend this bill to the house.
Mr MELHEM (Western Metropolitan) (16:20): I also rise to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021. This is a straightforward bill that makes a number of amendments to the current legislation to make the services which are currently provided by Service Victoria a bit more up to date in order to catch up with all the technological changes we have been experiencing. It particularly goes to the importance of the role Service Victoria has played in the last two years and, more importantly, in the last 18 months with the Service Victoria app, for example, during the COVID period. I think Ms Shing was talking about Services Australia—well, she was responding to Mr Davis really, about technology and how we deal with technological changes and IT systems and so forth—but how could we forget the infamous COVID app that failed miserably from the federal government. Millions and millions of dollars were wasted.
I just want to turn my mind to what Service Victoria has done and what this bill will do to make sure that we are able to provide services to Victorians—basically services that we require in the 21st century—and to make sure people are able to access services from the state of Victoria using an app. I am just looking at the Service Victoria app as we speak, and it started off being used for contact-tracing purposes and has now been used by millions of Victorians for COVID tracing and also to look at other services, like registration, for example. That is something I have started using in the last six to 12 months. It is very handy. You will be able to simply download an app. I want to commend the government for putting this together and Minister Pearson as the Minister for Government Services for coordinating all this effort. It has been a lot of work. A lot of people were a bit nervous about how it was going to work and what sorts of bugs we were going to have with the system—‘Is it going to fail on the first day?’ et cetera—but with minor challenges along the way I think it is working perfectly well.
The bill will go a long way to make sure that Victorians can get on their mobile phones or whatever they use, download the app and basically access all of the services. Whether it is paying a car registration, for example, whether it is renewing a fishing licence or whether it is accessing vouchers, which we have just announced—$100 million to assist businesses and encourage Victorians to go around the state and basically spend money and support local businesses—all of these sorts of things can be accessed through that app. There are a number of things that it actually does, and I will go through them one by one. The new changes will make Service Victoria able to provide more services and transactions to Victorians, making everyday life easier, as I said. Currently Service Victoria provides around 80 popular transactions in the same place. I named some of them earlier. You can top up your Myki. You can look at a traffic accident report. There are so many things that are now available on that app.
Another thing the bill does is allow Service Victoria to take responsibility for things that have been put in place and make sure the services are provided in a more timely and effective way. The other thing the bill does is make sure that the privacy aspect has been taken care of, so the amendments will actually strengthen privacy protection and bring more data under the standards of the act. The bill makes housekeeping sorts of amendments to current legislation to make sure we have got a good service that Victorians can access and to ensure that whatever loopholes there are in the system have been taken care of and that whatever information is collected by Service Victoria actually meets all the privacy standards. I notice other speakers want to talk about this bill. But really I would encourage everyone, if they do not have the Service Victoria app, to go and download it so that they can access all the services that app provides.
We all know how difficult and challenging the digital age can be. I know any IT project or any IT platform comes with its own challenges. Nothing is without challenges. That is why I think it is very important to make sure any legislation that is put in place tackles all these issues I talked about earlier, such as privacy issues and people being able to access all these services seamlessly. We need to put the right investment in place to make sure that we have got a state-of-the-art system and that the system can cope with demand.
I have got to say the services that are provided by Service Victoria have already proved to be very successful, I suppose to the amazement of some people. But I have full confidence in what they have delivered, which is a first-class system. One area of the Service Victoria app covers COVID testing, for example. Basically you register your rapid antigen test result using the Service Victoria app immediately and you notify the department of your test result, and a few minutes later you get a text message from a lovely nurse who is checking on you to make sure you are okay, twice a day. I had to use that service unfortunately in early January, and I received that response at 9.30 in the morning and 3.30 in the afternoon. So there are a lot of good things that are currently provided by Service Victoria, whether it is during the COVID period or the other services I talked about earlier where you can renew your licence, check whether you have got any fines and access all sorts of services like ordering birth and marriage certificates and so forth. More and more of our services are going online. The days when you physically had to go to a department to get something done are a thing of the past. Now by simply making sure you have got the Service Victoria app you can access all these services. But I think it is important to make sure that we get it right.
Cyber attacks are another thing. We need to make sure that all the necessary amendments to the act are put in place to allow the departments and the government to put the right investment and safeguards in place to make sure that whatever information they collect from Victorians or access in the Service Victoria app is safe and cannot be hacked. It is all about making sure our digital strategy for the future in Victoria will provide better, fairer and more accessible services. The national disability insurance scheme is another thing that people will be able to access through the Service Victoria app as well.
It is a good bill and I commend it to the house. I think it is very timely, and I want to commend the government for the good work they have done in developing and putting together that package to make sure these services are accessed in a timely way by Victorians in a safe manner. With those few words, I commend the bill to the house.
Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:30): I rise to make a contribution on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021. It is a critically important bill, and as Mr Melhem and others in the chamber have made contributions on this bill today, what we have come to learn and understand is that the Service Victoria app, for example, is something that has become quite a central thing for all Victorians to use in recent times, particularly for QR code checking in when we are going to venues and the like. So this bill will make some critical amendments to the Service Victoria Act 2018 in a range of ways which I will go through in a second.
It is really important that legislation like this, which will amend the main piece of legislation, can enable government departments to respond and be more agile to the needs of Victorians, and certainly having an IT platform like the app but also having things that support that app and support the efficient and effective streamlining of processes around it is obviously very important as well. Sometimes these processes can be clunky, and this amending piece of legislation is designed to make things smoother and easier for government departments to effectively operate the IT around this.
The purpose and the benefits of the bill are effectively to make these amendments to the Service Victoria Act, and principally they are to strengthen privacy protections by ensuring a larger volume of personal information is protected under the Service Victoria Act by supporting the increased use of Service Victoria’s services. It is also to ensure that Service Victoria’s information is more fit for purpose and better aligned with Service Victoria’s obligations under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014, the Health Records Act 2001 and the Public Records Act 1973. It will also support the increased delivery of Service Victoria’s digitised services to make government services more accessible, cost effective, timely and user friendly for all Victorians. I am going to come back to that point in a minute on ‘user friendly’ because there are some very important statistics about the sorts of digital services that are being offered and the satisfaction ratings. I would like to enlighten the chamber on some of those because I think they are very revealing.
The bill will also improve the efficiency of government service delivery by making it easier and quicker for Service Victoria to deliver functions to perform government services, including government services urgently required in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and allow government to be more innovative and responsive, including in relation to national projects or initiatives and those related to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also support the government in its ongoing modernisation and digitisation of the Victorian public sector.
So, as you can see, this bill is to enable and facilitate a more responsive response to IT and the need for Victorians to have a seamless way of accessing services. Effectively the bill will support the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the following ways: Service Victoria’s technology has supported COVID-19 check-ins, travel entry permits and exemption applications, metro and regional travel vouchers and vaccination certificates. This bill will make it quicker and easier for Service Victoria to deliver urgent services in response to the pandemic and in particular will streamline mechanisms for Service Victoria to perform those functions, which importantly will reduce legal complexity and the associated administrative burdens and allow a wider range of functions to be performed. It will also enable Service Victoria—and this goes to the point about data security as well—to securely store data for other agencies, which will support the faster launch of new COVID-19 response functions with less need to design systems connected to other agencies. Often what you find with other tech platforms is they do not like talking to one another, so having a seamless platform that does actually talk to and work in with other platforms is critically important as well.
Just in terms of what sorts of transactions Service Victoria has been providing to the Victorian community—this is really interesting—in preparing for this speech, I was looking at the sorts of transaction volumes, satisfaction ratings and costs per transaction that were associated with users using this app. Throughout the 2020–21 financial year Service Victoria delivered 151.3 million transactions—that is incredible—at an average cost per service of 25 cents per transaction. The top 10 transactions by volume and the respective customer satisfaction ratings I will go through now. Throughout the pandemic, QR code check-ins were something that all Victorians knew they needed to do, and we thank the multitude of Victorian businesses and other operators who assisted us in adopting the tech so that Victorians could check in when they were going into venues, because of course that aided our contact-tracing capacity. Throughout the pandemic in the 2020–21 year there was a volume of 146.1 million transactions, and importantly, the customer satisfaction rating for the QR code check-in was actually 96.6 per cent. It just goes to show that Victorians were satisfied with using the QR code system to check in via the Service Victoria app. So that was fantastic. Despite what might be said in the Herald Sun and other Murdoch rag presses, 96.6 per cent of Victorians were satisfied using the QR code check-ins.
Mr Finn interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: It did not take you long, Mr Finn. It did not take you long, did it?
Members interjecting.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Order! Ms Terpstra is entitled to be heard in silence, just like she heard everyone else in silence.
Ms TERPSTRA: It is getting very shouty in here, and I would like to remind those opposite to do me the courtesy of listening in silence.
I will go on now to talk about border permits. This was another very important function during the pandemic that many people used—3.38 million people used this technology to apply for border permits and at a satisfaction rating of 94.3 per cent. I know those opposite hate to hear those numbers, but they are incredibly high satisfaction ratings with our tech.
Among some of the other things that Victorians are using via these platforms you have got the VicRoads registration check, VicRoads registration renewal and recreational fishing licences—very important, Mr Bourman, and I know, something very close to your heart, and the satisfaction rating on that was 97 per cent. There we go. Travel voucher schemes had a satisfaction rating of 100 per cent. There we go—awesome. There is the Solar Homes program, the working with children check and many others. Overall there are approximately eight to 10 services that are listed and on average a 96 per cent customer satisfaction rating. It is important to have customer satisfaction ratings, and it goes to show that while it has been reported in the media that people are frustrated, well, clearly they are not.
The whole point to this amending legislation is to remove legal barriers as well. There are some legal complexities around the services that need to be implemented. This will no doubt allow Service Victoria to not have to deal with those legal complexities, and it will streamline things. I have just gone through some very important services, but Service Victoria is there to actually offer services to the Victorian community. It is about providing a convenient and easy-to-use website and mobile applications which make it simpler, faster and more convenient for the public to access.
Acting President, I do not know how many apps you have on your phone, but I have got a whole load. Apps really are the way to provide quick and easy access for people to a whole range of digital platforms, digital gateways and the like. As you can see, Service Victoria does have a very high satisfaction rating, I might repeat, across eight to 10 services—an approximately 96 per cent satisfaction rating, which is absolutely amazing. That is to be commended.
I might just talk about oversight here, and there are of course some governance oversight reporting arrangements which are very important. Just for those who might be playing along at home and may not know what Service Victoria is, it is an administrative office of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. The Service Victoria CEO is employed by the Premier of Victoria and has the same functions in relation to Service Victoria that a departmental secretary has. That person also has responsibilities and functions, so of course these things are all open to scrutiny and accountability. This bill has also had passage through the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee. That is a committee that I am on and Ms Watt in this chamber is also on. We considered that bill in November 2021, and we reported to the Parliament that it did not raise any concerns in terms of the charter of human rights. That is the role of SARC, to undertake those assessments, and there were clearly no issues that arose as a result of that.
This is a timely amendment. It is very important that these things happen, again, to make sure that we can streamline and make it easier for Victorians to access any services. I might just outline again some of the issues that Service Victoria has been experiencing with the Service Victoria Act that highlight why the need for this amending legislation is so important. There has been an increasing demand for Service Victoria’s unique capabilities to deliver fast, efficient, innovative and cost-effective digital government services. I have just demonstrated that as well with the range of services—just the top 10 services I outlined then—that Victorians are using. As I outlined earlier, legislative barriers in the Service Victoria Act have made it unnecessarily difficult and complex and sometimes impossible for Service Victoria to onboard new services and respond to the increasing demand from the government and the public for digital government services. This is why this legislation is important.
Service Victoria has been required to enter into cumbersome and legally complex arrangements to work around these barriers and deliver transactions that cannot always deliver services in the most efficient and innovative way. As we all know, sometimes legal complexities can take a long time to resolve in a range of ways. Despite everyone’s best intentions and efforts sometimes the wheels turn incredibly slowly, so this amending legislation will facilitate these barriers being removed. As I said, these barriers were stifling Service Victoria’s development and limiting Victorians’ access to online government services. We know we have got the demand there. I talked before about the millions of transactions that are being conducted every day by Service Victoria, and that therefore just highlights the critical need—as I said, 151.4 million services, an incredible amount of services, during the 2020–21 financial year. It is incredible, and this just highlights why this legislation needs to amend the principal act.
The critical barriers in the Service Victoria Act are limits on the sources of services that can be delivered. Service Victoria can only perform some functions when they are set out in Victorian legislation. However, many government functions are not set out in legislation, including many of the administrative functions of government that are integral to customer service. The types of services that can be delivered—Service Victoria can only perform a limited range of functions—are, for example, customer service functions and identity verification functions. Again, these are the sorts of barriers that need to be removed—they are just a few of them. You can see there is a demonstrated need to have these barriers removed.
It is going to streamline and make it easier for Victorians to access services. As I said, renewing your registration via an app would be fantastic. I would much prefer to do those sorts of things on an app rather than going onto a website and doing stuff. You can be sitting at home on your lounge at night and doing the things that you need to do there—applying for your recreational fishing licence, for example, on the app on the mobile phone; applying for your registration or checking your registration; applying for travel voucher schemes, and I know we have just announced some new travel vouchers that are coming up, so again, being able to do that online; and of course applying for the Solar Homes program. All these things that are integral to the Andrews Labor government’s policies are going to be so much easier to access. Like I said, you can be sitting at home of an evening with your cup of tea, watching the TV, and go, ‘Right, I need to renew my fishing licence right now on the app’. So it is going to be great. And like I said, the satisfaction rating with that is 97 per cent.
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: It just makes your life so much easier, doesn’t it? It is just amazing. And the things we can do today on a mobile phone—they are really just amazing little computers, aren’t they? Again, having these sorts of apps, these technologies, is going to be fantastic. I might leave my contribution there. I am sure there are other speakers who want to talk about how amazing and fantastic and streamlined and much easier the bill is going to make it for Service Victoria to continue to deliver effective services to the Victorian community. It is going to be fantastic, so I commend this bill to the house.
Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (16:45): What a delight it is to actually get up after the government has spoken on this particular bill. Obviously I am rising to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021. If you were listening to the government, it just sounded like this is an advertisement for an app, and it might be just that. We hear the government saying that this is just going to make everyone’s life so much easier, but if you have ever gone online on any of the government websites—or anything, for that matter—it is bureaucratic nonsense. It is not like one page where you just click on something and there is the page; things are absolutely buried away consistently. It is interesting to hear that the government believes there has been a 96 per cent satisfaction rate on this. Well, I can assure it that that is not what I have heard. I have heard 90 per cent non-satisfaction with the majority of the times that the community have gone online during this pandemic for any kind of government assistance and gone through any app or gone through any kind of website to find information or to fill out a form for a grant or otherwise. As well, we have heard there were times when they all crashed. Now, I do not know where the government has actually been. Or are they still not listening to the community? Clearly not.
You have mandated things. You have absolutely mandated things, and especially this government Service Victoria app. You have made people use it. You have absolutely made them, not recommended it. It was mandated. You said at the start this was for contact tracing and tracking. Now that has stopped, but you are still continuing to force people to check in. And what about the older community, the multicultural community and people who do not have the means to be able to either buy a phone or pay for wi-fi, due to the continual government lockdowns and losing businesses and money? And then there are the children of course, and most children are great at apps, as long as they can afford a phone.
I will make this brief. The bill aims to enable the Victorian public sector to deliver government services to the public that are more accessible, more adaptable, fairer, more innovative and simpler when enabling the expansion of Service Victoria’s enhanced safeguards on information protection—and I say, ‘Really?’. The bill will also support digital transformation in the Victorian public sector. Well, that sounds great. Apparently it is going to improve the delivery of digital services to Victorians and Victorian businesses and expand the protection for that information—they believe they are somehow going to start protecting that information—under a framework for the delivery of government services to the public. Now, the government believes that this bill achieves this by amending the Service Victoria Act 2018 to clarify and to expand the categories of the transactions and functions of Service Victoria that the Service Victoria CEO can perform to support the delivery of government services to the public and to allow the Service Victoria CEO to deliver digital tokens.
Like I said, on the surface this sounds great. But I have major concerns with this bill and some questions that need answers. We have all used the Service Victoria app during COVID, and throughout this time I have raised issues from constituents who have been unable to access it. Western Metropolitan is one of the most diverse districts in the state: over 37 per cent of people were born overseas—people from all around the world who now call Western Metro home. Over 40 per cent of them do not speak English at home. What provision is there for the app to provide information in different languages other than English? That is my question. More than 13 per cent of those households in my electorate do not have internet access at home. What provision will be made for those who do not have online access? What provision will be made for older people who are not digitally proficient? Will they be given other options for dealing with government or getting a digital token?
Then there is the issue of privacy. And I was just watching the government laughing. Well, laugh if you may, but—
Members interjecting.
Dr CUMMING: It is a different thing; I will take that. We were all assured that our personal information that was gathered for contact tracing and tracking would be secure. Then we found out that it was not that secure at all. What assurances will the government give that the information contained in the app, especially the digital tokens, will be secure and not shared? Another question. I also believe that there is currently an option to register to use the Service Victoria app or to use it as a guest. How many people are currently using the app, and how many have registered? Another question. Before I decide if I will support this bill, I would like answers to these questions.
Now, quite simply, my community has little or no trust in this government in the way of the security of their information, their privacy. And for me there have been consistently during COVID government departments and different apps involved. To go into a hospital you do not use the Service Victoria app. The majority of the hospitals have their own specific apps, and it has been consistent. So I personally wish to tell the government: hurry up and stop check-ins and QR coding, especially as you are not using it for contact tracing or tracking, which you have told the community is the reason why they must do this; it is clear that you are not. You give a verbal contract, you give verbal assurances and then you change the goalposts all the time on the community. So I am not quite sure when this government is going to absolutely let go. Recommend, do not mandate, and allow Victorians to actually get on and live with COVID.
Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (16:52): I rise to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2021, and of course Service Victoria is our government’s central digital service agency. I just heard some of Dr Cumming’s questions. I will leave that to the minister. When she summarises I am sure she will cover off some of that.
I must say, though, I did hear some of Mr Davis’s contribution earlier today. He opened up with his support for the bill—‘The coalition will not be opposing the bill’—and then proceeded for the next 20 minutes with hobnailed boots to give it a bit of a kicking. Wouldn’t you hate to be in the trenches with that bloke? ‘I’ve got your back, Brother. I’ve got your back’, and you turn around and you see David Davis behind you. You would wonder what you had done, fair dinkum. They say keep your enemies close and your friends a lot closer. When he pretends to be your friend, I think never is that saying more apt.
What I would say in relation to the bill is that governments right around the world have had to be very, very nimble, particularly in the last couple of years as they have dealt with this global pandemic and introduced many, many different IT platforms both domestically and abroad as they have sought to ensure as best they possibly could that they were in a position to track this insidious virus and keep tabs on it. Of course we here in Victoria have been no different, and to that extent I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to Service Victoria for the fantastic support that they have provided the Victorian community in what can only be described as the most unusual times that anyone here in this chamber and the three people listening have ever endured in their lives. Let us hope that when we get to the end of this pandemic, whenever that might be, none of us ever see anything quite like this again. So to the people at Service Victoria who have done so much, whether it has been through whatever the apps have been, whether it has been through their Service Vic app—I heard somebody say just before that, I think, some 3.75 million Victorians have added their vaccination certificate to their app, and that is a testament to the great work of Service Victoria—they have gone above and beyond in what can only be, as I say, described as extraordinary circumstances, and they deserve all of our thanks.
For whatever past sins that I may have, I have actually been around the public sector for the best part of three and a half or four decades now, particularly during my time in the tax office. I just remind the chamber that Mr Quilty and I are alumni of the tax office, and I do not share the same views as he does about the taxation system. Certainly I do not have a different view to the view that he now expresses that he had all those years ago. Particularly I remember in 1990 we were negotiating a thing in the tax office called the modernisation agreement, and it was considered groundbreaking. You used to walk into the tax office and there were rooms as big as this just full of paper files, and whenever somebody lodged their tax return you would have floors of people over in Collins Street here in Melbourne processing the tax returns, data processing operators keying all of this information in. Of course you can imagine back then all of the forms completed by hand, so you can imagine some of the errors that may have occurred over that journey.
So we sat down with the Hawke government at the time, and we negotiated something called the modernisation agreement, where we were taking the tax office from a paper-based organisation to what we thought was revolutionary at the time but would now be considered very arcane compared to modern technology. I give that example by way of illustration of the efforts and the lengths that the public sector goes to both here in Victoria and indeed through the commonwealth. Argue about their success, argue about whether or not some of the technologies that have been used and foisted upon the good citizens work—I think it was Ms Shing who made a contribution earlier on this matter, and she pointed to the Centrelink robodebts and how there are occasions where these things are not right and they do not prove to be the benefit that we want them to be—but nonetheless it does illustrate the public sector’s intent to be, and Service Victoria to this extent is, ahead of the pack. They understood during COVID the importance of providing services to Victorians—apps, IT platforms—that were beneficial.
Of course we all remember the days—I mean, it is interesting now when an app does not work. You know, if you are on the computer—or more often than not you are on your smartphone; you are not even sitting in front of a desktop anymore, you are just sitting on your phone—goodness me, if the wheel starts spinning for 30 seconds, people are throwing their hands up in the air and saying, ‘Oh, my goodness!’, ‘Oh, what’s going on?’. And of course it was not too long ago that we were actually standing in queues waiting for transactions to occur so that we could be the next to get our business done. We can of course all relate to some of those stories, but what this is an example of is Service Victoria really extending themselves, doing everything they possibly can to provide more services and more transactions to make everyday life a whole lot easier.
In regional Victoria that is so important, because what we see in regional Victoria—and I would love the opposition to start talking about this at some point, particularly around regional Victoria—is some of the bigger organisations, some of the iconic organisations, in regional towns fleeing those towns, such as banks, for example. Now, I note that when there is a branch closure in Melbourne, suddenly it is all over A Current Affair and all of these news programs. But of course you go to regional towns and you see this more and more and more and more and more, where what you have is banking agents—maybe through Australia Post if there is one. So these sorts of services, because people live so far from the human services that are sometimes provided by the public sector, become more and more necessary for our regional Victorians, and none more so, as I say, than in my electorate of Northern Victoria Region. It is so important for people in regional Victoria to be able to access all of the services that somebody in metropolitan Melbourne is able to. These sorts of platforms—these apps, these services—allow Victorians, regardless of the postcode and regardless of where they live, to be able to access those services, making their everyday life so much easier.
We know that Service Victoria has been working in partnership through the development of this with local councils with the express intent to remove red tape and deliver streamlined service processes around things like, for example, Solar Homes, solar business rebates and renewables. It is commendable that Service Victoria, in my view—and I have been around, as I say, the public sector for a long, long time—are leading the way. They are leading the way, they are out there, they are completely service focused, they are customer focused, they are citizen focused and they want to get this right for the citizens of Victoria.
Impressively—I heard somebody else say this in the debate earlier; I cannot recall exactly who it was—Service Victoria has a 96.6 per cent overall customer satisfaction score, and the most often used word to describe Service Victoria has been ‘easy’. Now, you do not often hear that, particularly in the times that we have endured over the last couple of years. So congratulations to Service Victoria for achieving those results. I know that the 3.4 per cent who have not given that positive rating will burn in the bellies of the people at Service Victoria, and they will be striving to close that gap. There are many, many businesses, particularly in services, that if they got a satisfaction rating of 96.5 per cent would be absolutely cock-a-hoop.
There are a couple of other things that the bill does, and I will just briefly touch on those. The bill will also allow Service Victoria to provide services and transactions in a more timely and effective way. That means that Service Vic can use their time more effectively to deliver for Victorians rather than spending their time working out complex legal arrangements with departments and other agencies. People have talked previously in this debate about that intersection between the various departments and agencies and how that works.
Thirdly, this bill will strengthen the privacy protections and bring more data under the standards of the act. I remember speaking at an ALP national conference—I think a decade ago or probably more—about the issue of data privacy and how I was working then for the mighty Finance Sector Union doing their policy and infrastructure work. We realised the danger to citizens with the lack of cybersecurity and the prevalence of privacy breaches and how it is so very necessary for states and for nations to really work collaboratively to get that, because we know that this is big business for crooks and we need our citizens here in Victoria to have the confidence in the systems and that we are providing the best protections that we can possibly provide at any moment in time so that when they are using our platforms—to the best that we can offer—the privacy of those individuals is maintained.
I am going to leave my contribution there. We could easily keep talking about this for a long time, I think, because it is a very, very important subject. I do want to commend the minister and I do want to commend this bill to the house.
Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (17:06): It is a great pleasure to speak on this very important bill. I just want to pick up on some of the matters that were raised in the chamber. That is the whole point of having a rigorous debate—that we can speak to some of the concerns that are raised and address them, here and now—so I hope that we can overcome some of the concerns that have been raised. Sometimes there is a fine line. I might just put in a little qualifier. Some things are genuine concerns and others are just little elements or inferences that are lobbed across the chamber in the hope that no-one will pick them up. But rest assured we are listening, and I am more than happy to address all the matters—or a number of the matters, the most significant matters—that were raised today.
One clarification that I think is really, really important in this debate is that this is about Service Victoria and not everything online. Just going back a little bit to some of the discussion which was undertaken by Dr Cumming—she might have been a little bit concerned about matters which are not actually what we are transacting today—I would really like to be able to overcome some of those concerns and make sure that she feels very comfortable with the bill at hand. This bill is also not about QR code check-ins. I hope that can allay some of her concerns as well.
We established Digital Victoria to accelerate digital transformation, and if we look at it through that lens then I think everyone can perhaps have a clearer perception of what the bill is designed to achieve, or the various amendments, and then perhaps feel more comfortable with the direction we are headed today. So I hope that overcomes some of the concerns that were raised in that regard.
In terms of looking at accessibility, this is a matter very close to our hearts, and I would like to think it was raised with some sort of genuine concern. I am not sure, but either way I am happy to speak to some of those issues as well. What has been found is that internet access and digital literacy are increasing, and I think that is probably well known. I know even within my own family there are some people who are not as amenable but others who are right there. I do not think we should necessarily be prescriptive about age because, I tell you what, I know some people who are in their latter stages of life and are absolutely going for it in terms of social media and other outlets that we have available to us.
In May 2021, for instance, the Australian Communications and Media Authority found that 93 per cent of older people, over 65, had internet access in their home at June 2020—up from 68 per cent in 2017. That actually gives me some reassurance as well, knowing that so many people are becoming so much more comfortable and are able to more easily access online services. So it is not actually accurate to suggest that older Victorians do not use technology or cannot, because the stats simply do not bear out that assertion. It was once correct, but we can see that this assertion is rapidly evaporating in terms of being valid, because the stats suggest otherwise.
Now, in terms of how we compare to New South Wales it would take probably a good hour or two for me to go in depth in sort of comparing the two. I was not necessarily going to go to that issue today, but it was raised by Mr Davis, so I feel it is incumbent upon me to just raise a couple of aspects of his concerns and the inferences that he was trying to suggest—that somehow Victoria was behind New South Wales. If I can just put it out there, for instance, the Service Victoria Act 2018—so we are not even looking at the amendment we are currently dealing with—is the legislative framework for verifying identity and creating what we have: a legislative framework for verifying identity and creating re-usable verified identities. I hope that makes sense. It did when I got to the end of it. It is a little bit of a circular argument, but we are getting there. By comparison—okay, stay with me—there is the Service NSW (One-stop Access to Government Services) Act 2013. I just want to offer a comparison, because if we are going to lob little grenades out there, we might just catch them and put some caveats and qualifications on them. That is exactly what I am doing here. For instance, Service NSW has no legislated identity verification code. So when we are talking about matters of privacy, we need to be really, really precise. I think it is important not to just make suggestions and inferences without backing them up with facts. That is what I am seeking to do here today rather than just lobbing little grenades and hoping we do not pick up on the negative inferences. We really want to deal with facts when we are dealing with such highly sophisticated technology and what this actually means for fellow Victorians.
If we look a little further when it comes to some of the privacy protections, if we are looking at Service NSW—and I must point out I am not actually critical of Service NSW. As I was saying from the outset, I did not necessarily want to go there. I did not feel it was necessary. We are really just transacting the bill here for Victorians proper and speaking to the critical elements. However, the door was opened, so I feel that I do need to make sure that we have a factual debate on this issue. For instance, when we are looking at Service NSW, there is no specific limitation on collecting information for the purpose of performing customer service functions. That is not a criticism; I am just stating factually what the case is.
We could look at Service Victoria, but let us go to the Service Victoria proposed amendments to just take it a little further. There are minor changes to the minimum standards that limit collection of certain types of information—customer service information can only be collected where necessary to perform any functions under the Service Victoria Act, section 22, subsection (1)—when amended by the bill. You can already see there the rigour that is applied under Service Victoria in Victoria, so to speak. Account information can only be collected where necessary to perform any functions under the Service Victoria Act and where the individual who the account belongs to consents—when amended by the bill. And, finally, identity information can only be collected where necessary to perform an identity verification function under the Service Victoria Act and where the individual who the information relates to consents—that is, section 45 when amended by the bill. I hope that goes some way to overcoming some of the interesting assertions that have been made by Mr Davis. I feel that he took a little bit of poetic licence, and I am just trying to add—
Mr Finn: He’d never do that.
Ms TAYLOR: Who knew! Never! No, but I did feel he was gilding the lily a little bit, and I felt like we should just pull it back to the actual factual circumstances.
Now, some other inferences that Mr Davis did make were in terms of the speed at which we have been able to transform digitally, so to speak. Can I give an example? I think actually Ms Shing did speak to this earlier: Service Victoria, for instance, has helped as we were emerging from the deepest restrictions by being the first jurisdiction to offer vaccination certificates in its app. How about that? But if you had actually listened to Mr Davis, you would have thought otherwise. I thought that we should make it very clear that we were the first jurisdiction to offer vaccination certificates in our app. I am glad that we have got that on the table and we have cleared that up, and I hope that allays concerns but also gives our fellow Victorians confidence in the system that we have set up here today.
Now, there was discussion about older Victorians and their capacity with digital technology. We do know that digital technology is not for everyone, and that is why Service Victoria work with their partners to provide offline channels which let people complete their application, prove their identity and make a payment if necessary by using a paper-based application. So just to allay some of the concerns that were raised there—whilst there has been, obviously, very significant and rapid adoption by many Victorians, and none the least those over 65—we do still have the backup, we still do have the allowance for those who are still more comfortable with a paper-based mechanism, so I hope that that also gives some comfort as well.
And on a further point, the app language—because there was some discussion before about people of non-English-speaking backgrounds—I am glad that that has been raised because I am very happy to speak to that issue. It is certainly a matter that is very close to our government, and we are very determined to overcome any barriers that may inhibit a person being able to access services they need. The app language is written to be accessible and inclusive. Research shows that by writing things simply, people with non-English-speaking backgrounds can use the app. Further, digital tokens are saved on the device. For example, the digital COVID certificate is not saved by Service Victoria. So I hope that also goes some way to alleviating some of the concerns that were raised about the accessibility of online platforms within the context of the bill that we are transacting here today—and of course we are not, as I stated from the outset, talking about all online services and accessibility. We very much need to adhere to the ambit of the bill that we are transacting here today.
Finally, when we are looking at equity and accessibility, the other matter that I think is relevant is which stakeholders have been consulted. You have got all Victorian government departments; Victoria Police; key partner service agencies of Service Victoria; VicRoads; the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages; the Victorian Fisheries Authority; the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner; the health complaints commissioner; and the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. So when we are talking about equity I would like to give assurance to the chamber that certainly there has been a very thorough investigation to get real feedback on how the actual experience of this kind of technology is for fellow Victorians—the commonwealth’s Digital Transformation Agency; the commonwealth’s Department of Home Affairs; and privacy and legal sector stakeholders, including the Law Institute of Victoria, the Australian Privacy Foundation, Electronic Frontiers Australia and Privacy Australia. Whilst that might have been slightly laborious, me reading out those various stakeholders, there is method in my madness, and that is to give weight to but also to reassure the chamber that with all those so-to-speak objective eyes on this legislation we know and we have confidence that we are on the right track and that the amendments are appropriate and are actually going to be supporting the best possible outcomes and accessibility for Victorians.
Motion agreed to.
Read second time.
Third reading
That the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to.
Read third time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Gepp): Pursuant to standing order 14.27, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill without amendment.