Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (11:40): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, I refer to an article in the Sunday Age which states:

Twelve people including four children have died after those trying to save them from critical injuries or illness made desperate calls to Victoria’s triple-zero service that were never answered or were picked up too late.

Minister, the article goes on to quote the interim CEO of ESTA, Stephen Leane, saying:

… we’ve had some real trouble trying to deliver on the expectations of the community and we went through some really difficult patches through late 2021”.

“We still haven’t worked our way through it … It will take ESTA 18 months to two years to get to where I think it needs to be,” he said.

Minister, ESTA is your responsibility. Do you accept that 18 months to two years to fix the problems at ESTA is simply too long and would be putting the lives of Victorians gravely at extreme risk?

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (11:41): I thank Mr Davis for his question. These are important issues and difficult stories, and my condolences to the families or anyone who has been impacted by a call delay. It is a topic that we have been discussing here for some weeks now, and I confirm that any delay in answering 000 calls is unacceptable. I thank the hardworking ESTA staff, who are motivated every day to help Victorians.

In relation to the improvements, Mr Davis, there have been improvements in the past months in relation to reduced call delays. We are supporting ESTA financially through the ability to recruit and train more people, retain more people and provide more overtime where possible. Indeed we continue to work hard on seeing improvements day in, day out, and I would like that to be as quick as possible. We know that yesterday’s funding announcement of $115 million, a record investment announcement, which is on top of the $27 million that I secured as a Treasurer’s advance last October, in addition to the 43 staff that are now on board as a result of last year’s budget, are all investments that are well needed and will be recognised by the community as they see these improvements flow through the system.

As I have indicated before, call takers are extremely well trained. They need to be well trained. They are the front line of the front line, and they need to ensure that they have the skills necessary to respond appropriately so that they can get the appropriate help to people when they are in need. This is not an overnight fix, and I have been quite open about that. We will continue to work hand in glove with the interim CEO, Stephen Leane. We have the experience of Deb Abbott there as well, so there is years and years of emergency frontline experience that is really transforming this organisation, building morale and ensuring that the support is there for those hardworking call takers. I am sure I will continue to provide updates to the house as we see more and more improvements each and every day.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (11:43): I note the minister did not directly answer the question as to whether she accepts that 18 months to two years is too long. I therefore ask: is it the government’s position that community expectations of a 000 service—that it actually answers—are unrealistic?

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (11:44): Of course not, Mr Davis. As I have said, we are supporting call takers to be trained and to be supported to ensure that they can do what they want to do—pick up the phone and help Victorians in need. In relation to the 18 months to two years time frame, the funding announced yesterday goes some way also to establishing a standalone centre of training. What we have had in the past is on-the-job training where experienced call takers have had to come off the phones to help train, which in a surge capacity is certainly not somewhere we should be. This investment is also going to have a dedicated training facility within ESTA so that you can start to really build that capacity and not impact your day-to-day call taking. So it is not surprising that we will have continued reform over a long period of time, but we are seeing improvements right now.