Questions without notice and ministers statements
Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority
Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:00): My question is for the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, you are responsible for ESTA and the workers at ESTA. There is a memorandum of understanding signed between the government and ESTA workers. The MOU provides extraordinary benefits to these ESTA employees outside of and above their enterprise bargaining agreement entitlements. How much has been paid to date to ESTA workers or employees pursuant to the MOU over and above the required EBA entitlements?
Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:00): I thank Mr Davis for his question. As we know, the pandemic has placed incredible pressure across the board on our health systems, and ESTA is the front line of the front line when it comes to ambulance response and working side by side with our paramedics. What we know is that the pandemic also impacted our workforce. We had a lot of staff furloughed, particularly during the January period, across our hospitals, across our ambulance services and indeed in ESTA. So asking an already exhausted workforce to turn up, take overtime shifts, work outside their ordinary hours and spend less time with their families indeed required a response from government that financially recognised the sacrifices that they were giving, and I will certainly not make any apologies for the cost of that. I think the sacrifices that our hardworking health professionals have made have got us through this pandemic, and every Victorian is grateful for that effort. So, Mr Davis, there have been additional payments made to those staff, and in fact that memorandum of understanding currently is in force. In relation to the payments going, I am so glad that they have been made available for those staff so that they can continue to do the great work they do for Victoria.
Mr Davis: On a point of order, President, the question was actually quite specific about how much has been paid to date, and that was not answered.
The PRESIDENT: As you know, Mr Davis, I cannot direct the minister how to answer. But I will deal with it at the end.
Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:02): Minister, thank you for your answer. I note that the key point, which was how much, has not been specifically answered. I ask in that circumstance: will you confirm that the rollover of the MOU, which is due in June, will see ESTA workers paid up to an additional $10 million in extra payments beyond their EBA entitlements for the next six months? And if this is not correct, what is the value of the MOU entitlements over the same period?
Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:03): Mr Davis, the money that has been provided to support the additional work, the efforts over and beyond an ordinary full-time equivalent employee at ESTA, is in recognition of the sacrifices that they give to take up those additional hours. They normally work four on, four off, so ensuring that people are incentivised to give up more of their time to provide a vital service is something that I am actually proud of. Will it cost millions of dollars? Of course. The original allocation for the MOU was $28 million to ensure that all of the resources were available so that management could work with the industrial partners to ensure that as great a flexibility as possible was afforded to workers to ensure that we could respond to surge capacity, demand days—we have had a lot of public holidays and things, for instance—so we will continue to provide financial support to this important organisation.