Wednesday, 21 September 2022

 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:35): I want to say something about the state government’s failure with the health system at the moment. It is clear that hospitals like the Northern Hospital have been botched from go to whoa. The support has not been there to expand the hospital. The government has not put enough support into that hospital to make sure that the huge growth in population is able to be attended to and the emergency department capacity is there. We expanded the emergency department in 2011–12 and on from there, but Labor did not continue that expansion of the hospital as was required. I say the state government has made announcements recently, and there is a wake-up moment with Daniel Andrews, the Premier. He has realised that after four years of this term and four years of the term before—eight years in total—he has left the health system in a disastrous place. He has left it crumbling. He has left it in a position with the highest waiting lists in the history of the state by a long margin, and he has left it in a terrible position with respect to ESTA.