Thursday, 19 October 2023

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (12:57): (485) My constituency question is for the Minister for Government Services in the other place, and it relates to accessibility of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. I have had this raised with me by a number of constituents in the Ballarat area. It is particularly difficult to get access to births, deaths and marriages to access vital documents. Quite often they will call up early in the morning and be told to go to the website, which is a bit difficult to use. The operating hours are from 8 till 2, so they do not really suit many people that can actually get there outside of work hours. And get this: wait times on the phone are over 3 hours. So how is anyone who works or has different commitments meant to work around a 3-hour block of their day? It is just completely bizarre. So I ask the minister to look into this and make sure it is actually solved so that more people can access this vital service when they need important documents or other things.