Members statements
Elective surgery
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:44): Victoria’s health crisis is getting worse by the day. We know that. Daniel Andrews and his government will not be up-front with Victorians and say exactly how many Victorians are on waitlists for vital, essential elective surgery. This is not surgery that is meaningless or minor. In some instances it will be life saving and in many instances it will be life changing; in almost all cases it is life changing. This is so symbolic of how this government operates. It operates in secrecy. There is a total lack of transparency around what the government is actually doing. There were record numbers of Victorians on elective surgery waitlists prior to COVID. This latest challenge and the crisis that is going on has, yes, of course, been exacerbated by COVID, but it has not been caused by COVID. It is years of mismanagement; it is years of a lack of planning and preparation, years of underinvestment. The Labor Party have been in power in this state for almost 20 years—two decades—and yet with a booming population, with an ageing population, they have not invested in our healthcare system and as a result we have now got a disaster on our hands. As one CEO said to me, this is a train wreck and this government does not know how to fix it.