Tuesday, 20 September 2022

 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:07): My question is also to the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, Victorians attempting to call the 000 service in cases of emergency, those who wait so long in vain for their calls to be answered that they simply hang up, surely have been completely failed by ESTA. I therefore ask: Minister, in the last financial year to 30 June how many hang-ups occurred at ESTA?

 Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:08): I thank Mr Davis for his question. Indeed data provision is a matter predominantly for the inspector-general for emergency management, and abandoned calls are something that are reported to him and he has capacity to look at in his capacity as the overseer of the system. When it comes to people that hang up, there are a variety of reasons this might occur. We have prank calls or kids experimenting; there can be reception issues, as many country MPs would be familiar with; there can be multiple callers to an incident, where somebody gets through and therefore somebody arrives so they hang up; or indeed you might have an emergency that fortunately resolves itself. Abandoned calls are reported to the IGEM as part of his call-answering performance. For each call to 000 that is abandoned, if anybody hangs up, the details are provided to ESTA and they receive a call-back to see if everything is okay. You will note that in the IGEM report, a very comprehensive report that looked at the period from October to May—recent times—abandoned calls do not feature heavily, but it is a matter that he has full capacity to look at.

I would just probably make the note too that in relation to calls when people hang up within 5 seconds, that data is not collected for the purposes of the amount of calls that ESTA receive each day. So often they can actually receive more calls in a day than I have been telling you because they do not actually count the 5-second hang-ups, because it was a decision from IGEM and ESTA that that data was potentially misrepresenting the true situation of the calls that were being received. But as I have indicated, this is the data that is available to the IGEM. He looks at all of these issues, and his reports, as you are aware, are quite fulsome.

Mr Davis interjected.

Ms SYMES: Mr Davis, I am not in a position to provide data. The verified data comes from the IGEM. That is his role. He is an independent officer who looks at these issues. He is the overseer. I have explained to you in some detail the process in relation to what happens with abandoned calls—the fact that they all receive a call-back from ESTA to see if they are still in requirement of emergency services and the like. That is the process. When it comes to data, that is provided to the IGEM, who provides that to me, and everything that he has provided to me recently has been made public.

 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:11:011:): The minister should know the number of hang-ups and she should tell the community. But let me just say, the minutes of board meeting 166 of the ESTA board on 3 June 2021 noted there was now agreement to remove hang-ups from the reporting and this would improve performance reports. I am concerned to know what follow-up does occur, and I simply ask a further question: will you release the number of hang-ups each year for the last four years and explain how many of those relate to people who have not got the service they need?

 Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:11): This is an example of perhaps where you should have a couple of supplementary questions up your sleeve, because I covered off this quite extensively in my answer to your substantive question. In relation to the decision and the board minutes you referred to, I explained that there was a decision informed by the IGEM and the board to dismiss the calls that are hung up within 5 seconds. So it is literally that they answer the phone and say ‘Emergency services’ and they get hung up. In fact it was not to ensure that the data looks better. In fact it would be the opposite, because it would show that more calls were being answered by ESTA than less, so in fact it would actually have the reverse impact. That is certainly what happened at that time. Your second question was about the process. You had three questions in your supplementary. Your second question was in relation to the process of abandoned calls, and I am pretty sure that everyone heard my answer in relation to that.