Tuesday, 1 August 2023

Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:53): (332) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Government Services in relation to the ongoing issues with Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria (BDM). In August last year I raised the issue of long waits, which a constituent had raised with my office. The minister assured us that the delays were minimal and continuing to reduce in time and that longer waits were caused by the applicant not providing the correct information on application. The minister stated that staffing increases would continue, but here we are 12 months later, and we have had another constituent contact us to say that she has been waiting for over a month for a copy of her marriage certificate, which she paid express post for.

In August 2022 the minister stated that they had 98 full-time staff, and I would be interested to know if this has increased, considering the backlogs people are experiencing. Presumably they are all working from home, as their office is still closed. If you look at the Google reviews for births, deaths and marriages, it is pretty grim, and they have a 1.7-star rating. My staff looked at some recent reviews, and not only are people still experiencing long waits for certificates, they are unable to contact anyone at births, deaths and marriages, with many people paying fees for certificates that they do not receive. The reviews include stories of people waiting for hours on hold, being hung up on and emails being unanswered. Many people are paying for services they are not receiving, and they have no ability to fight for a refund, as they are still unable to resolve this in person and none of the other points of contact are working. The online system is broken, and many applications expire before they can be correctly completed and they have had to pay fees. I will highlight a couple of cases: one person just this week stated that they paid for a certificate and have been waiting for four months. When trying to address this they had been on hold on the telephone for 1½ hours. Another person urgently waiting on a death certificate waited on hold for 3 hours. Customers are asking for a consumer watchdog to be involved.

We need to know why such an essential service is only open from 8 am to 2 pm and why the customer service centre is still closed. When will it re-open? Are we paying rent for a building that is permanently closed? My request for the minister is to reopen the BDM offices immediately and ensure that services are returned to an adequate level.

The PRESIDENT: Before I call the next member, the standing orders prescribe that we can have up to 20 members who can do adjournment matters, and if my maths is right, we have got 21 on the list. If one person can consider during the next few adjournments if they would like to not do theirs, that would be very helpful.