Thursday, 9 March 2023

Government performance

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (19:32): (104) For almost two years Victorians were forced to submit to so-called expert advice that kept us locked up, masked, separated, vaccine mandated and more. People lost their jobs if they did not comply. If you went to a funeral to mourn the loss of a loved one, you risked getting arrested. Why? It was all because of so-called expert advice. On 30 January 2022 the Premier said:

You know what’s mandatory? Following the advice of experts.

Well, Mr Andrews, if that is the case, how come you are not following the advice of experts now? Let me give you a few examples. Integrity – Commissioner Redlich gave advice on the Integrity and Oversight Committee. He said:

We are plainly dissatisfied with the way in which the Parliamentary Committee operated, particularly in the last 12 months.

Primarily, he wanted to change the composition of the committee:

… so that it no longer has a majority of members who are members of the party in government, and that the chair of the Committee is not from the party in government.

This expert advice – ignored. On bail reform – on 9 February there was another headline, ‘Bail reform ignored’. The Andrews Labor government has ignored comprehensive reforms to Victoria’s criminal justice system, and despite being legally required to respond to this within three months, one year on the status is: expert advice ignored.

On 15 February this year the Law Institute of Victoria gave expert advice on the Health Legislation Amendment (Information Sharing) Bill 2023. Ms Wolff said:

Patient autonomy must be front of mind in any health legislation being put forward by government to protect patients’ rights. The implementation of an opt-out scheme would place choice back in the patients’ hands about the healthcare they receive in the Victorian public health system.

Today this expert advice was once again ignored. So do the Andrews government take advice from experts, or do they more see their role as advising experts? The action that I seek is that the Minister for Health adopt advice given by experts such as the Law Institute of Victoria on the Health Legislation Amendment (Information Sharing) Bill 2023 in order to protect fundamental human rights of all Victorians. It is clear that Victorians cannot trust the government to take advice from experts, because if it does not match what they want to do it will be ignored.