Thursday, 26 May 2022

Veterinary workforce

Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:25): I rise today in my members statement to pay homage to all of the vets and the veterinary assistants throughout our whole fantastic state. I know in my patch during COVID—I have a very dear friend who is a veterinary nurse, and she told me—they are very much under the pump. They have had their supply of overseas veterinary surgeons cancelled, they have also had people adopting more pets during the lockdowns, but that has implications for their workload, particularly if there are furloughed staff. As a pet lover and the mother of Buddy, it is a really amazing job that they do. They take care of our furry friends and our livestock and wildlife animals as well.

Dr Hugh Millar is the Victorian president of the AVA, the Australian Veterinary Association, and I have spoken with him this morning. He has written to Peter Walsh and I think members in this chamber speaking about the bill that is before the house this week. He has grave concerns for clause 189, which removes from the board the president or the vice-president in terms of the board position, which is absolutely counterintuitive in the sense that you take away those with the most knowledge, expertise and understanding to run the board or to be chair of that board. So we have listened, and we are certainly going to move an amendment during the course of the committee of the whole. I also hope that the government is listening to this and works for a very sensible outcome.