Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Bills

Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Lizzie Blandthorn:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (13:44): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution – a brief contribution; I do not intend to drag this out – on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023. I state at the outset that we will not be opposing this bill. It does make some minor changes. I will put on record some concerns we have, but I will also indicate that the general direction is something that we support.

To summarise, the main purposes of the bill are that it amends the Service Victoria Act 2018 to provide for the delivery of functions by Service Victoria’s CEO either with or on behalf of non-government entities – so it broadens out those that can come into the Service Victoria arrangements – and provides for the delivery of functions by non-government entities either with Service Victoria’s CEO or on behalf of the Service Victoria CEO or a service agency. It sharpens the purposes of the act and sets out other functions and powers of the Service Victoria CEO. It enables the identity verification standards to deal with processes governing applications for the issue of renewal, suspension and cancellation of electronic identity credentials. It ensures that information management requirements under the act are consistent with the equivalent requirements in other acts. This follows the Noone report – and people we will be aware of the report undertaken by Dr Claire Noone – that recommended minor and technical changes to the act that would help improve the operation of Service Victoria as well as provide a more end-to-end framework for users, essentially assisting the establishment of a one-stop shop for digital services.

I want to make some points here that Victoria has lagged – lagged badly – in this area of electronic service delivery. We have repeatedly seen New South Wales out-trump us and lead the way in this area. Victor Dominello, an enthusiastic and visionary minister in the previous New South Wales Liberal government, led the way nationally on establishing apps that would enable people and businesses in particular to undertake all their business online and to do so in a way that was swift, reliable and safe. I pay tribute to the work that he did. We were very aware of that work leading up to the last election. We continued to point to the fact that Victoria was behind in this area. Victoria has a problem, as we know, with excessive regulation – excessive layers of rigidity and regulation. That has been pointed to, and I draw the chamber’s attention to the work that has been done by the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the last couple of years that makes it clear Victoria is the most heavily regulated state. That we have got very large taxes too is another point that their examination made, but the regulation aspects are highlighted by reports like the VCCI report.

One way to smooth out the regulation without diminishing the checks and balances that government obviously needs for many things is to enable the use of IT to smooth the way forward, to make sure that businesses and individuals are able to access government services remotely, easily and smoothly. That is what we want to see, and I think most people in the chamber want to see that. I think the government wants to see that; I think the crossbench wants to see that. The question is: why has Victoria been so slow? What is the rigidity? What is the problem that has been here to stop us actually moving? We are still a long way behind where New South Wales is now, so we have got to catch up. This is actually an efficiency issue; it is an issue of productivity. This is one of the areas where new technology actually enables us to move and to reduce barriers to business activity. This is that happy sweet spot that we should be pushing for to ensure that Victoria is the leader rather than the laggard in this area.

So to that extent we welcome this bill. It is a very modest set of changes. I am going to go through some of the main provisions. For the end-to-end service delivery part, the bill makes amendments to the principal act to allow for Service Victoria to deliver end-to-end services through the app. My goodness – thank God. They are catching up. They have got it – so, good. The bill gives appropriate provisions to access and issue various applications such as licences without having to pass off to VicRoads or another agency. This, as I say, will increase efficiency and reduce the number of agencies doing the same work.

There are obviously matters around identity verification and electronic ID. Changes in this section broadly relate to the end-to-end changes and give the Service Victoria CEO the power to make further inquiries around identity verification on behalf of various agencies. This will improve the identity verification standard and also streamline the processes. These changes will also give users the ability to consent to storage of data and documents on the platform for future use around ID or decline this for privacy and security reasons.

The bill also enables the establishment of partnerships with non-government entities. Again, this is entirely sensible, and we are open to this. The changes will open up a new method of interacting with government for businesses, with the legislation allowing Service Victoria to make agreements with non-government entities for the purpose of performing joint functions – the one-stop point of interaction with Victorian businesses when they require a government service, making the process less complicated and more streamlined.

I am going to put on record some caveats as well. There are a large group of people out there who are not digitally literate, and we need to make sure that they are protected. My father is one of those. I talk to him about the difficulty of getting things done online, and I could relate many stories. But he is not unique. People in his generation face this problem, and we need to be kind and thoughtful about people who have a different background or are from a different generation, where IT of this type is not the common background.

This is new, it is threatening and it is frightening to some people, and they are cut out of services. I am going to pick on the Commonwealth here; I do not always want to be negative about this government. I look at some of the Commonwealth services. People come into my office – again, people I know and people in the various loops that I deal with – and the stories of the aged care assessment services issues, stories of disability access and stories of pension access at a Commonwealth level are often horrific. People, desperate people, cannot get the services they need, because they cannot access them. They just cannot physically do the stuff online that they are required to do. If they do not have someone to help them, and some do not, they are left without those services. You are then told to ring. Well, you ring, and you are put on hold for a very, very long wait. Even when you get through to somebody, they are often not prepared to help you.

This is the difficulty for some, particularly older people, but it is also true of many in our multicultural communities, where language is not as robust, not as strong. We have to make sure that as well as streamlining the service and enabling people who can use their digital literacy to get further down the track quicker and cut the barriers that way – we need to make sure that that is happening – we must not forget and we must not leave behind those older people and the people from our multicultural communities who are thereby at risk. We do need to have that real commitment by government to make sure that there is a phone service that is properly answered, not the long wait where you go round and round in circles and they send you back here and over there: you do number 7, you go to number 7 and they send you across somewhere else. We have all had that long circle-go-round wait, which can be hours and hours long. That is not the way it should be. Parallel with the improvement in these electronic service access modes there should be that commitment to preserving access for older people, those who are not digitally literate and particularly our multicultural communities.

I also want to say that Victorians are cautious about this increasingly because we have had problems with data leaks and data mining that has gone on. We do want the highest standards so that people’s data is not at risk. People’s data cannot be at risk. We saw Optus and we have seen some of our health providers where there have been major leaks. I am not here to point the finger at anyone, because we actually need high standards here, and I am putting this on record and saying actually we cannot be ignoring this. I am far from confident that many parts of our Victorian public sector are as robust in this regard as they need to be. I just put that on the record. We have seen a number of health issues. When I was health minister I was always very, very nervous about centralising data in a way that meant it could be accessed centrally, where you might have lesser controls and lesser preventative measures to ensure that data is protected. We know the concerns about health records more generally, and we know that there is little confidence amongst many people. People are cautious and nervous about it. People do not want – and I am talking in a general sense here – their health records to be tipped out. They do not want their phone records to be tipped out. They do not want centralised databases of information to be tipped out. Parallel with this – we welcome some of the steps here, some of the catch-up that is going on here – we do need to have appropriate protections and controls.

I want to make another couple of points too. We did some work a little while ago which the Herald Sun put on the front page. We looked at some of the ICT projects across government. I just want to make a more general point here. The ICT website for the state government’s digital strategy and transformation projects shows almost a third have been terminated, postponed or merged. We looked at this. Only 8.3 per cent of the Victorian government’s digital strategy and transformation projects have been completed. Sixty-nine projects, 28.9 per cent of all projects, are postponed and merged. Collectively, these 28.9 per cent of all projects are, astonishingly, 28,000 days overdue. The same projects are collectively $143.65 million over budget. So these ICT reform digital strategy and transformation projects are a long way behind, a long way over budget. One project, the Department of Justice and Community Safety’s serious offenders reform ICT program, has been postponed and placed on hold due to technical and schedule uncertainty, despite being 547 days overdue and $4.89 million, or 29 per cent, over budget. Another project, WorkSafe Victoria’s data and analytics hub, is 357 days overdue and $23.6 million, or 93 per cent, over budget. I am just picking some of these, and these are from the time we ran this story on the front page of the Herald Sun. Even the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s common corporate platforms project is currently $31 million, or 22 per cent, over budget. It has a revised 2026 delivery date because of delays due to stakeholder and resource availability. And it goes on. It is just a very serious mess.

On the IT dashboard, picking up many of these points and looking at things more recently – and I pay tribute to the work of my colleague Jess Wilson in picking up a number of these points – 18 projects, worth more than $200 million in January this year, are classified red status, and 59 projects, worth just over $1 billion, are classified amber status. Among the troubled projects is a new software program to support the implementation of Labor’s windfall gains tax, which has suffered a $3.71 million cost blowout. It will not be completed until mid-2024, a staggering 12 months after the tax came in. These are examples of programs that have not been administered well by this government.

The ICT dashboard is actually an important site, and I welcome the work in putting that material in the public domain. It does enable the community and it does enable businesses to monitor the progress of the government on a lot of its IT modernisation, but it is equally true to say it is a sorry tale. If you look across government, there is very little you can point to and say, ‘Gee, that project’s doing well. They’re right on time, and they’re holding to their budget.’ This is not the experience in Victoria that we have seen. What we have seen is projects that have run late, projects that are delayed, projects that are massively over budget and projects in some cases that are completely and utterly stalled. So it is not surprising to me that Victoria, in this digital and IT strategy area, is so far behind New South Wales, other states and territories and other jurisdictions.

Victoria has really got to do a big job of catch-up, and to the extent that this bill takes a number of small baby steps in that direction, we welcome it. So we will not be opposing the bill, but we will be following carefully those matters, those caveats that I pointed to, particularly ensuring that older Victorians, multicultural Victorians and those who are not IT literate are actually taken care of. They should not be left behind, but we should have faster and smoother operations of our digital strategy and our digital systems.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:02): I am very pleased to rise and speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023 and to not allow errant esses to creep into the title of the bill or the agency to which it refers. Service Victoria is an incredibly important part of the government’s approach to making the practice of dealing with government simpler for citizens. It is an agency established to transform the way that services that government delivers to its citizens are handled and to provide to the citizens a much more seamless experience and a much more technology-focused, citizen-centric, technology-led approach to dealing with government.

In the way that members of our community engage with the various arms of government and the various departments and agencies of government, improving that practice we know will increase the level of trust and confidence that members of the community have in the services they receive. When they see us doing things well, when they see us engaging with them in the modes and channels that they use and that they want to be able to use, they are more likely to believe that the services that we provide are relevant and of value to them. Ensuring that we have high-quality, relevant services that people need delivered in the way that they have come to expect is fundamentally important to the Allan Labor government, because we are in the business of delivering good government services and we want people to understand that the services that we provide are not only high quality and relevant to their needs but also easy to use. That is the foundational question when it comes to considering things like Service Victoria, because as governments and as government agencies we have got to think about how citizens see government, not how government sees citizens, as our first call. I would take a punt, although I have not done any research of my own on this, that most people have no real understanding of the various acronyms of government departments and agencies, what they do and how they operate.

We as government should not expect that their view into us – the first call of their view into us – is to try and navigate such a maze of often changing letters, which is one of the things that Service Victoria was designed to deal with when it was set up and established by this government. It was designed to provide a consumer-facing and citizen-facing way into a range of government services. The second task was to actually try and ensure that those transactions were transformed to make them more citizen-centric and simpler and easier and to strip out the unnecessary complexity that often bedevils the way that customer-facing transactions occur within large organisations. Whether they be government or private sector, large organisations that deal with individuals at scale and in bulk often do not think too much – or at least the bad ones do not –about how these services are experienced by individuals who need to use them, and it is incumbent upon all well-thinking large organisations, whether they be government agencies or private sector organisations, to be continually trying to figure out how to make those systems work better to improve the customer experience. As I said earlier, improving the customer experience and improving citizens’ experience of dealing with government is a key part of our task in increasing their faith in our ability to deliver services to them.

Obviously, Service Victoria has been up and running for several years now. This legislation before us today seeks to make some necessary amendments to the legislative framework that underpins its operations. Obviously, there has been a real drive across government to improve service delivery to consumers and to citizens. I think sometimes events require us to accelerate that process, and certainly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic we very rapidly saw why it is important to have these sorts of platforms. During the pandemic the Service Victoria platform played an enormously important role in providing at the time what was required in terms of checking services and the ability to fast deploy that to millions of Victorians. At its peak the Service Victoria platform was downloaded onto 7 million devices across Victoria. But the experience of those years also demonstrates why is important to have the capability within government to deliver on that in such a rapid way, so that when those challenges do emerge, sometimes unexpectedly, we can respond in the way that consumers want.

Since the pandemic obviously Service Victoria has continued to grow its digital service offering and now provides around a hundred different government services in a range of areas. I know many out in the community, for example, have a working with children check. Hopefully people have taken advantage of the new capability within the Service Victoria app to have an electronic version of their working with children check on the Service Victoria app on their phone. I was at a preschool in Cheltenham last week when that came in very handy for both me and my staff member. We were very easily able to pull out our phones and show that we had a valid working with children check. I know that is something that millions of Victorians could find beneficial in their day-to-day lives, and that is what Service Victoria is all about.

During the last full year that we have records for, 2022–23, Service Victoria was active in collecting consumer feedback. Nearly 200,000 pieces of feedback were given to Service Victoria during that time. The satisfaction score that people had – the way that we were measuring people’s satisfaction with this service that Service Victoria is providing – overall was 96.7 per cent, which exceeds their budget paper 3 target of 95 per cent. What I think is really important and really gratifying for us when we are looking at whether this is working or not is not only the volume of people using it and their satisfaction but that the most common word used by customers in their feedback on their interactions with the Service Victoria app was ‘easy’ – it was easy to use. For those involved in customer-facing transactions, that should be one of the things we absolutely strive for: not only scoring well on their ratings but getting people to think that the way that they are engaging with this particular government service is easy. I think that is a credit to all the work that has gone into it.

As Mr Davis said in his contribution, this bill follows an independent review into the Service Victoria app, which was tabled in the Parliament in 2022. Obviously, the principal legislation, which was introduced in 2018, included a provision for the act to be independently reviewed after its commencement, and this review was conducted by Dr Claire Noone. The bill implements in its recommendations on Service Victoria the government’s commitment to continuing to deliver digital transformation. It makes a few key amendments and broadens some of the definitions in the act to allow for end-to-end customer transactions so that, unlike the original framework under which Service Victoria was established in legislation, through the amendments that are proposed in this piece of legislation, the end-to-end transaction will be able to be done by Service Victoria itself, including things like the issuance of documents and the provision of certificates, approvals and grants for customers.

The legislation also amends the list of Service Victoria’s functions to be more principles-based so that the platform can be more innovative and deliver more bundled-type service offerings. For example, it will allow the bundling of a range of outdoor recreation permits, like a fishing licence, a boat and trailer registration and a marine licence for renewal. If we do that in one single transaction, which is allowed for by this bill, for those people who need licences or permits from a range of different agencies to do the same type of thing their lives will be made a lot simpler. I know, Acting President Bourman, you are absolutely concerned to make sure that people who enjoy the outdoors have an easier time of it from the government, and it is great to see the government delivering on that for people right across our community.

The legislation will also reduce back-office administration currently in the act, reducing the need to make regulations to deliver new services so that Service Victoria can respond more quickly to government priorities. I suppose this is a reflection on the rubber hitting the road between legislators and technologists, some of whom are very fond of extensive mechanisms for regulatory functions to be specified in pieces of delegated legislation. Sometimes it is more efficient and more effective to allow that to occur by other means so that the range of things which are required to be placed into legislation or subordinate legislation can be reduced to matters of important principle rather than unnecessary technical detail. Those sorts of changes will definitely speed up the ability of Service Victoria and government more broadly to deliver on the kinds of digital services that people want. It will enable more flexible options for identity verification and allow Victoria to align with the Commonwealth trusted digital identity framework. Currently there are very complex provisions about applications, processing and review, and the bill will support a more flexible and responsive approach. Obviously, as we move forward into an increasingly digital age things like identity frameworks and trusted identity sources will become even more important for consumers, and as government, as the provider of identity verification, it is important that our practices are robust, modern and efficient.

The last couple of minutes I will spend talking a bit more broadly about a few things raised in debate. I think Mr Davis did raise an important issue more broadly about cybersecurity. Information security is an incredibly important part of the way that all agencies need to do business these days. I think it is demonstrative of how seriously this government takes those issues that it has now been more than five or six years since Victoria appointed its first chief information security officer in 2017. This Labor government’s first cybersecurity strategy was released that many years ago. It has always been an important part of the vigilance that this government shows towards the information that it holds.

I do agree that the range of services that government offers cannot only be the domain of those who may be digital natives. There are many in our community who do prefer other contact mechanisms. I do not necessarily think that, as Mr Davis would suggest, all members of multicultural communities are unable to use digital services, but certainly there are some who need those services provided in language, for example. But also – and I think this is an important point – some are not digital natives, some are not comfortable with digital channels, and moving those of us who are into those channels frees up resources and capacity for those who are not to be able to use more traditional means of customer contact. Being efficient in the allocation of government resources should be always something that we have an eye to.

This is important legislation to update the Service Victoria provisions to keep Victoria moving on the journey that we need to be on in terms of transforming digitally the interactions that our citizens have with government. It will make important improvements to the way Service Victoria operates. I am glad to see that, and I am pleased to support the bill on the floor today.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): In the absence of anyone that has not spoken from the opposition for the moment, Mr Berger, you are up.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:17): Thank you, Acting President Bourman, and welcome to the chair. I am sure you will be able to preside quite well in your capacity as Acting President.

I would like to take a moment just to talk about Service Victoria. It was the then Andrews Labor government that launched Service Victoria, an easy one-stop shop for some of the most important interactions we have with the government departments. This was in recognition of how difficult it can be sometimes to know exactly how to deal with multiple departments and agencies and the unfortunate case that it is often not a very user-friendly experience.

Service Victoria offers access to over 100 government services, saving everyday Victorians the hassle of cycling through a million websites and documents. These services include transport and driving, personal education and training, family, health care, employment, business, outdoor and recreation, housing and property, crime and the law and COVID-19. Service Victoria covers almost every aspect of Victorian lives through its assistance and programs. Through Service Victoria you can renew your licence or your vehicle rego, apply to work with children and access support and information on issues ranging from housing to health to law. You can even buy a Myki card through Service Victoria.

Service Victoria has also brought how we use everyday identification and concession cards into the 21st century. Thanks to the Allan Labor government, Victorians can make use of the digital wallet to store their essential documents right on their phone, ensuring that you never lose your cards. Through the Service Victoria app you can always have on hand your working with children check, your seniors card, your veterans card and more. There is even exciting news coming from Ballarat, where a pilot is being held to test the effectiveness of adopting digital drivers licences, and I look forward to seeing how that goes. This would allow for drivers to hold their licence in a more secure and easily accessible manner, and their licence would more quickly reflect important changes such as to their home address or licence conditions.

I would like to note my strong support for the proposed amendments to the Service Victoria Act 2018 to improve the user experience of digital government services for all Victorians by extending the capabilities of the chief executive officer and allowing for the delivery of services by and/or with non-government entities. As a highly complex application providing key services to Victorians across the state, it is integral that we maintain the due efficiency and clarity of services that are accessible to all.

Before I continue, I would also like to thank the Minister for Government Services Gabrielle Williams, the Minister for Local Government Melissa Horne and the countless experts and professionals involved in the independent review of the act in 2022 for the hard work they have put into continuously improving the user experience of Service Victoria. As a government we are all too aware that those who make the most use of our support services are the most vulnerable Victorians – those in crisis, struggling with their physical or mental health and the more difficult circumstances that could up-end their lives. A centralised and accessible point of contact for these services can be a lifesaver for many Victorians doing it tough, and this is what Service Victoria provides.

Let me outline for you the myriad of benefits and assistance this crucial service provides for Victorians. I am proud to say that last year the then Andrews Labor government extended its sick pay guarantee program to 400 more eligible jobs. Since its introduction in 2022 over 76,000 casuals and contract workers have signed up to the scheme, with over 1.8 million sick and carers leave hours covered with fair pay. Service Victoria handles applications from this key program, ensuring that casuals and contract workers never have to choose between recovery and paying their bills. This program highlights how crucial it is for Service Victoria to be efficient and accessible for Victorians doing it tough, and it is a big part of the reason I strongly support this amendment.

For eligible households running on solar energy, Service Victoria allows you to apply for a rebate of 50 per cent off your hot water bill for up to $1000. That is up to $500 you can get off your household bill – certainly not a number to turn your nose up at. Of course Service Victoria also provide rebates and loans for homes to access a solar panel system or battery, making these further savings more accessible to Victorians. Service Victoria can direct Victorians to a range of discounts and rebates available that are relevant to them through its savings finder. In what we know to be a time with cost-of-living pressures, this service is absolutely essential for Victorians who may be doing it tough.

Service Victoria also allows for automatic approvals of permits such as footpath trading and outdoor fitness with participating councils, streamlining the process to the benefit of small businesses and the community at large. They will process the application and pass it on to the local council and neighbouring businesses if you are intending to use a footpath trading zone, making the process much easier for businesses and recreational organisations.

Not only can Service Victoria assist you with accessing key government services but there are also countless benefits to be found and utilised. Get Active Kids is an incredible program that allows for families to apply for vouchers which can help Victorians afford club memberships, fees, uniforms and equipment. Just last year we also introduced the veterans card, which can be accessed through Service Victoria, with exclusive benefits including a $100 car rego discount, free public transport on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day, free trailer and caravan rego, free boating licences, a fishing licence exemption and access to veterans employment programs. Service Victoria is a cornerstone of our support services, servicing over 15 million activities in the past financial year. The countless benefits that this service provides are clear through all those spoken about above.

For Service Victoria to achieve its full potential for Victorians in need, the digital interface must be efficient, straightforward and navigable. This amendment intends to more strongly clarify the purpose of Service Victoria and strengthen the service provision capabilities by extending the powers of the CEO and allowing collaboration with non-government entities. Dr Claire Noone has cited Australia Post as a possible collaborator, as mentioned by the member for Preston in the other place. I thank her for her invaluable insights on digital service provision, provided to the Parliament in 2022 through the independent review of the act. This review engaged over 40 stakeholders, analysed over 100 documents and provided detailed research through domestic and international case studies. This work is integral to the improvement that the Allan Labor government intends to make to Service Victoria through its amendment to the act. The basis of this amendment brought to the Council is on the recommendations of the independent review. Through this amendment Service Victoria will be able to deliver more digital services, provide more flexible and accessible identification verification, create pathways for more varied partnerships and service provisions and define information management practice in accordance with the revised act, key for a service provider that provides electronic identity documentation.

The bill clarifies the purpose of Service Victoria by amending the definition of ‘customer service function’, explicitly acknowledging Service Victoria’s ability to issue official information documents and to receive or make payments. Service Victoria can already perform these actions in accordance with the Service Victoria Act if defined as customer service functions, but this amendment is integral to recognising Service Victoria’s increasing relevance and role as a provider of end-to-end services to countless Victorians. It also crucially removes the requirement within the act to make regulations to perform particular functions, streamlining Service Victoria’s ability to adapt their operations in accordance with consumer needs. As noted by Minister Blandthorn last sitting week in the introduction of this bill, these amendments do not interfere with the consumer’s right to privacy, despite an increasing scope for access to information, and thus negate any potential concerns regarding these amendments. The Victorian government has come to an agreement with the other states and territories to align to a common standard of digital identification with verifiable credentials. This amendment bill would as such allow Service Victoria the flexibility to align identity verification with national and international standards as they evolve in the future. The amendment would also support potential future participation in the Australian government’s digital identity system by removing inconsistent provisions within the act and reforming the content to be more principle-based. More specifically, we would amend the current provisions within the act for application processing and reviewing and the issuing of temporary and ongoing electronic identity credentials, instead setting them out through the identification verification standards made under the act.

As we trend further toward a more interconnected country within a global sphere, allowing for adaptable and futureproof government services is integral to their success and relevance to consumers. Through allowing partnerships with non-government entities in relation to delivery of customer service functions, identity verification functions and other functions related to the delivery of government services set out in clause 15, Victorians will be able to use identity documents verified through Service Victoria with outside organisations requiring this information. This reduces the complexity and difficulty of navigating our highly digital world and reduces the amount of third-party storage containing our sensitive data. These legislative amendments highlight the implementation of cybersecurity measures, data encryption standards and compliance frameworks and will strengthen Service Victoria against potential cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. These reforms will ensure that any partnerships with non-government entities maintain assurance of data privacy, setting out that non-government entities may comply with the terms of an agreement where their existing processes or systems do not comply with the best practice principles. Specifically, these entities may be required under sections 4, 6 and 38 of the charter to apply their services in a matter compatible with human rights when delivering their services in partnership with Service Victoria. This is necessary where the functions are or include functions of a public nature or are being implemented by a non-government entity on behalf of the Victorian government or a public authority, such as a Victorian government agency.

The Allan Labor government is committed to the highest standards of cybersecurity, and these amendments will ensure the protection of Victorian users and confidential information that they provide to our services. This amendment would allow for Service Victoria to collect changes from businesses benefiting from these services in line with government cost recovery guidelines. Of course all engagements with non-government organisations will be assured and designed to protect user information, including the use of enforceable provisions under the amended act. The amendments also create provisions for engagement with community representatives, industry stakeholders and end users to gain their insights and ensure the highest possible standard of operation and user-friendly services provided by Service Victoria.

Victorians accessing Service Victoria to make applications for permits or licences will be able to bundle relevant services, such as a suite of outdoor recreation permits, including a fishing licence, boat and trailer registration and marine licence renewal, all in one application. Service Victoria, through these capabilities, will be able to tailor and streamline their services in accordance with customer trends, increasing relevance to Victorian customer needs. For those Victorians unable to verify their identity online these proposed changes to the act will support more alternative processes and enable existing services to be moved to Service Victoria more quickly. The bill will repeal requirements to send formal letters with titles such as ‘Interim refusal notice’ if more information is required for processing – an unnecessary and stressful letter to receive for struggling Victorians trying to access government services. We will reduce the need for ministerial approval for operational matters and reduce the need to create further regulation, delivering new services, speeding up Service Victoria’s ability to adapt their services to better fit the needs of the consumer and making processes easier for Service Victoria to service Victorians. In turn this makes the services more easily accessible for all Victorians.

Through this amendment to the act we as a government will better enable the implementation of the Victorian Government Digital Strategy 2021–2026, supporting the goals of our digital strategy of better, fairer and more accessible services, because this is what Victoria deserves. All Victorians, young and old and our most vulnerable, should be able to access all the services and benefits that Service Victoria offers. In 2022 we introduced amendments to the act to address technical issues arising in the COVID pandemic response, in 2023 we introduced a dedicated Department of Government Services with a singular focus to maintain and improve government services such as Service Victoria and in 2024 we are committed to building further on these reforms to keep progressing technical advances and increasing consumer expectations of government service delivery.

The Allan Labor government is committed to continuously improving the services. But there is always more work to do in improving these systems for everyone and making the services more user-friendly and accessible, and this is what the amendment proposes to achieve. I hope my fellow members in the Legislative Council will join me in supporting these crucial amendments for the benefit of all Victorians. We are changing the game for government service provision, and we must continue to set the standard as our technical world evolves. This amendment will do just that, ensuring that Service Victoria remains a constant and relevant government service now and into the future.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:32): I rise to speak to the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023, and I do so acknowledging those that have spoken on this. I understand that this bill is largely following a recommendation from a report by Dr Claire Noone, who was looking at the act to improve the operation of Service Victoria – we know it has been plagued with problems for many years – with the ideal of having a more end-to-end framework for users and essentially enabling greater serviceability for businesses and individuals by using a digital component.

What the bill does is provide for the delivery of functions by Service Victoria, either with or on behalf of non-government entities, and provide for the delivery of functions by non-government entities, either with the Service Victoria CEO or on behalf of the Service Victoria CEO. It enables the identity verification standards to deal with the process of governing applications for and the issuing, renewal, suspension and cancellation of electronic identity credentials, and it ensures that information management requirements under the act are consistent with equivalent requirements in other acts. I have spoken of how it arose after the report undertaken by Dr Noone. It also is going to allow applications – and I know that you are a shooter, Acting President Bourman – in terms of shooters licences, and others have mentioned the ability to have that digital licensing on hand, to have greater reliability and accessibility but also be far more functional and far more easy to use. We are in 2024. Other states have this function, and it has worked exceptionally well.

Of course there are going to be concerns around cybersecurity, and I am sure that the government understands that. We and all Victorians will be watching that in terms of ensuring that cybersecurity checks are in place. The government does not have a great track record in that area – there have been many cybersecurity breaches – but given that, it is a real concern for governments right across the board in terms of cybersecurity issues. I think it is an emerging issue for all governments, particularly in Western countries, dealing with some of the attacks that are coming from foreign entities. Let us not bother about that – that is just in passing – but I do make the point around those concerns that many people have.

I want to draw attention to some of those issues around where Victoria has been. They have been slow to the party on this. As I said, New South Wales and Queensland have had business services apps in place for a number of years. It was a real contrast during COVID when New South Wales had a very good app that came into place, as part of their Service NSW app, around COVID contact tracing. God forbid we ever go back to those days – they were dark days and ones that I never want to return to, nor would I suggest anyone in the state of Victoria would, after what we suffered, but it does go to the point about why we suffered so significantly. New South Wales had a far more sophisticated app, as I said, and an ability for individuals and businesses to have that app and have that contact tracing. Ours was absolutely abysmal in this state, and as a result we had lockdown after lockdown because of the incompetence, the mismanagement and the absolute debacle of contact tracing.

We had massive implications that arose from hotel quarantine and then we had the Coate inquiry, which was a faux inquiry – no-one could remember or recall. While I am on faux inquiries, I am very concerned about the inquiry that the government have announced today, which is non-transparent and will not go to the issues that absolutely we need to address in this state about what happened last week. I have gone off on a bit of a tangent here, but I make the point because it is very important to ensure that Victorians have trust in government, and especially when it comes to something like this services app. They want to understand that their information is secure, that it is not going to be breached or used in a way that will compromise them, their businesses or indeed parts of the community.

I make that point because of Victoria’s track record, which has been so appalling. As I said, when we had those issues around COVID and contact tracing, there was a stark contrast with the New South Wales app and what it was able to do. They had people actually getting about their communities and undertaking what they needed to do, whereas we had mass and widespread lockdowns because the government had no ability to manage the situation appropriately or properly. As I said, we are seeing those implications, and I read with some concern about the terrible truancy rates from children not going to school, the very real impacts to our health services, which are still recovering, and mental health services, which still are not up to speed. There are so many issues. We had the harshest of restrictions with the worst outcomes and more deaths than anywhere around the country. I am not saying that has anything to do with the app, but I am just making the point that this government has a poor track record and needs to get this right.

While the intent is there in terms of having this bill be non-controversial in nature, we do need to ensure that it has the safety components in place, that it is aligning with those back-end systems, that it is complying with other parts of legislation to ensure that compliance is adhered to and that it does allow for a more flexible future for the user, whether that is the individual or businesses. That is the main purpose around having a look at those technological advances, ensuring that cybersecurity matters are addressed and that the Victorian public have total trust and feel they can use this app given the government’s track record in the past.

I say again the opposition will not be opposing this bill, but I do hope the government takes into consideration some of those concerns highlighted by some of the many issues that arose out of that very good example in recent years with COVID and how it was managed by those other communities across the border in New South Wales and in Queensland – particularly New South Wales, which managed COVID far better than Victoria. It was just a pity that Victoria did not take heed of what was happening in New South Wales. This is one thing where individuals and the community had greater freedom and they were very willing to undertake what the government asked, whereas here in Victoria it was an absolute basket case and it is no wonder that many Victorians are very sceptical about this government’s ability to implement such a system.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:40): Acting President Bourman, how wonderful it is to see you once again ascend to the rank of Acting President, and how good to see you in the chair today.

I also rise to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023, and I rise to speak very much in favour of this bill. This bill will aid the continued success of the Service Victoria app, making it easier to deliver digital services across a raft of policy areas and government services to all Victorians. It will provide greater flexibility going into the future, reforming the legislation so that Service Victoria can adapt itself more effectively. This app, as many members will know, was established to benefit customers based on the principle that access to services should not always require visiting multiple agencies and websites, nor should it require filling out and mailing paper applications. For that reason, the Service Victoria Act 2018 was passed by a previous Parliament. Since then the government services which this app covers have become easier to use and more convenient for all Victorians to engage with.

The app came into broader public attention and more widespread use during the COVID pandemic, as a few of our Liberal colleagues from across the aisle have commented on. They are quick to draw comparisons to other apps, but I do not seem to recall them mentioning the federal government’s COVID app. I believe they brought an app out. I cannot actually remember the name of it now. There was a federal government app, apparently, and it was so atrocious that I think I remember downloading it and about a week later it was completely useless, which just goes to show what really happens when we put those opposite, those in blue, in charge of anything remotely to do with technology. I think they are falling asleep at the wheel over there. I am not sure if they have actually heard me.

But just as they are behind the eight ball when it comes to technology, so they are with many other things both in this place and of course more importantly when it comes to delivering for the people of Victoria. That is why it is so good that, despite the catastrophic failures – and I am not sure how many millions of dollars were spent on that federal app by the bumbling former Morrison government – what we are talking about here today, the Service Victoria app, is an example of an app that did work well and that did support Victorians through those dark and difficult times. That is what an effective government app such as Service Victoria’s should always do.

But of course it is not just in times of crisis. There are many other areas where this app comes into play and where it helps people with their day-to-day transactions with government. There are all sorts of different services that it can be used for. I think the one that grabs my attention the most is the casual and contract workers sick pay guarantee and using the app to access that entitlement. This government – it was a COVID measure as well, in fact – trailblazed and led the nation. We are still hoping that our federal colleagues will catch up and implement a federally supported casual sick pay program, because the pilot in Victoria has proved to be very successful. It is saying to retail workers, to hospitality workers: if you are a casual employee, you do not have to choose between coming into work sick – running yourself down, getting your co-workers infected as well – and earning an income. It is a really, really important thing. It is a really important message to be sending as well, let alone an important service to provide for Victorians. There are hundreds of thousands of casual workers in this state, and unlike those opposite, this is a government that actually wants to support those workers and wants to say to them, ‘You shouldn’t be penalised if you do happen to fall sick.’ So that is a program that has been really good to see the rollout of, and the way in which you access that is through this very app, the Service Victoria app. Of course if anyone does wish to take advantage of it, if they have not done so already, you are entitled to five days pay per year under this program. Just open the app, the orange one with the white Victoria logo, and register your details in it, and then anytime that you do need to avail yourself of that casual sick pay guarantee, it is right there and ready for you.

One of my favourite examples of what this app can do, but of course it is not the only one, is if you are renewing or taking out a new membership for Ambulance Victoria – again, a very reasonable membership that you can pay for and a really, really good way to support yourself and your family. Again, you can do that all straight through the app, and you can update your details as well with Ambulance Victoria, which is really quite handy to have. I remember about five or six years ago I got a call from Ambulance Victoria. They very kindly called me to tell me that my membership was expiring that day, so I hastily renewed it. That can now be a thing of the past. It is all on the app, all on your phone. You can see what is there. You can renew that in time and have that right there at your fingertips.

It is also of course about supporting our small businesses, whether you are creating a business profile account, renewing a liquor licence or searching for various different business permits and licences – all of which you can do right there on the Service Victoria app. There is a general savings finder as well of course on top of that, which also links through to the many successful rounds of the power saving bonus that this government implemented. Again, it is right there for people to access. Also disability workers can apply for their disability worker registration and renew that registration as well. It has everything, right through to Get Active Kids vouchers, which you can apply for and redeem through the app as well.

You can verify your identity, and you can also use that verified Service Victoria identity with various other government agencies, such as Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria, Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Labour Hire Authority, the RTBA – the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority – the Victorian Building Authority and WorkSafe Victoria, as well as of course various local councils that have taken up the program. You can apply for all sorts of things through the Service Victoria app at various selected local councils – everything from pet registrations to bin orders to other permits and whatever else you might be seeking through councils.

Of course I know that outdoor recreation is something that is very close to your heart, Acting President Bourman, and if you are seeking a recreational fishing licence, again that is another thing that you can get quite easily through the Service Victoria app. Also you can register an interest to hunt pest animals on Crown land, something we have discussed various times in this chamber – and I have raised at various times as well the need to responsibly hunt some of these pest species, especially as they affect constituents such as mine in the outer suburban pockets of Melbourne that I am privileged to represent. It goes all the way through to kangaroo harvesting, miners rights and other things like that as well.

If you are a senior, you can also apply for a digital seniors card and get a digital seniors business discount card. You can also apply for various solar home rebates or offers or loans, apply for hot water rebates and apply for digital drivers licences too, which is another exciting thing that is coming on and is along the way. Those of us in the south-east are still having to wait a little bit, but the trial program is now underway in the Ballarat area. I am sure that will excite you, Mr McCracken. I am not sure if you have got a digital licence yet. I hope you do. You can, after my contribution today, show us how well it works. I have heard very good reports from others already, and I am sure you have taken that up, Mr McCracken.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Michael GALEA: A digital pen licence – what a good idea. This is probably the time where I confess to the house that I never got my pen licence in primary school, so I have been unauthorised, writing everything that I write in here unlicensed. Perhaps that is a good idea as well, Minister Shing: we should get some digital pen licences and perhaps some catch-up programs for those of us who missed out in school. That is the sort of example of day-to-day functions, where they do not happen every single day for every single Victorian, but when you do need to access those services, whether it is a car licence or down the track – in fact I think you can already renew your boat licence on the app as well – they are wonderful things that you can actually do. It makes your life easier. That is exactly what effective government services should be all about. They should be about making access to government simpler, more effective and more efficient for all Victorians so that we can be there to support Victorians with what they need when they need it.

At the end of the day that is what this bill is all about too, because by improving the various back-end processes of Service Victoria, which is what the amendments in this bill will actually allow us to do, we can actually focus more on delivering those services. I am sure there are many other things, aside from just pen licences, that we will be able to bring into these programs and to this app which will be of great benefit, whether it is to the entire Victorian community or to various particular things. Again, hunting is a very good example: it does not affect all Victorians, but for those it does, making it easier for hunters to, as I say, hunt pest animals can only be a good thing as well.

The bill today comes after an independent review of the original Service Victoria Act 2018. That act of course included a provision that the act be independently reviewed three years after commencement, and this bill today is here in response to that review, which was undertaken by Dr Claire Noone. Following that we have the bill which is before us today.

As I said, the back-end processes which will be simplified through the various mechanisms in this bill will help to ensure that those services can be delivered more effectively. It will also clarify that the Service Victoria app can issue documents, approvals and grants for customers. It will also ensure that the app responds to new priorities flexibly and that when demands for its use come up in perhaps unexpected ways, we are more agile and more flexible in what we can actually arrange for Service Victoria to do. As well as that, some various aspects of unnecessary back-office administration will be removed as part of this bill. An example of this is that the bill will reduce the need to make regulations to deliver new services and then also reduce the need to obtain ministerial approvals for operational matters, such as establishing the underlying technology for a new database to create an improved experience for people applying, for example, for a copy of a marriage certificate or the like.

The bill will also bolster flexibility around various identity verification options. This will be achieved by enabling more detailed information about processes to be set on identity verification standards under the act. We know of course that those standards are regularly updated, and ensuring that Service Victoria can respond to these updated standards as they happen is really quite important. This includes such things as keeping up with and adapting to various national standards as they change as well.

The amendments in this bill will allow Service Victoria to harmonise the information management requirements across all of government. It ensures that information will continue to be protected, which is obviously very important. The current protections under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and the Health Records Act 2001 apply, as does the retention and disposal authority, which is of course under the Public Records Act 1973. That continues to apply and is an important safeguard as part of this system. The changes to information management requirements obviously will not impact how much information is retained, and this is due to the fact that Service Victoria will still be required to comply with those retention and disposal authorities as I just mentioned, which fall under the Public Records Act. So those safeguards apply now and will in the future under the act just as much as they have done in the past.

We know that the Service Victoria app has been very popular. I mentioned, I believe, that we have seen in the order of 7 million downloads of the app, but on top of that we have also seen some really good results from feedback. From people that have used it to claim their sick pay guarantee – in my view the best program available under this app – we had a 98.6 per cent satisfaction rate. Similarly, 97 per cent were favourable when they renewed their vehicle registration; renewing working with children checks, 96.3 per cent; checking vehicle registrations, 95 per cent; buying a fishing licence, also 95 per cent. So it is really good to see that the app is responding to what Victorians need, and hopefully those strong responses will continue and, as the app evolves and provides more services to Victorians, as this bill enables us to do, it will continue to be an app that is of genuine and practical value to people, as I said, whether it is going for your licence for something, whether a boat or car or something else, Ambulance Victoria membership, sick pay guarantee – whatever it is it may be.

I will conclude my comments there. This is a sensible, straightforward bill. It should be a non-controversial bill. For the various reasons I have gone through and for all the benefits that the Service Victoria app provides for Victorians, I do commend this bill to the house.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:55): I would like to make a few brief comments today about the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023 in our second-reading debate, and as Mr Galea has just said, it is a largely, largely uncontroversial bill. I note this side of the house will not be opposing it. I thank my good friend Tim McCurdy in the other place for being our shadow minister in this space and for providing some good research and context to our knowledge in this debate. We know that this bill comes about through recommendations by Dr Claire Noone in her required investigation, or required review, commissioned by the minister on the third anniversary of the act.

I like the idea of a one-stop shop. It sounds good. There are always, I find, teething troubles in all of these sorts of events and procedures and programs, but the idea to streamline services certainly has merit. I understand that there are about 100 different agency functions, ranging from licence renewals to rebates and savings finders, that can be encompassed by Service Victoria. Indeed I might just put on record that I recently had to renew my licence. Every 10 years you have to renew your licence, and I had to go onto the VicRoads website and download the app and conduct that. I was quite pleased, though, that they said I did not have to renew my photo, so indeed for the next 10 years I will look like I looked 10 years ago. I am very pleased about that. But these sorts of expediencies can certainly be handy, rather than going to various different apps and downloading them.

I also note that during the course of the summer, my wonderful nephews and my son and I were out on the Gippsland Lakes. They decided to throw the fishing line in. We were out on Lake King in the Paynesville and Metung area, and they downloaded their fishing licence. So when we pulled up at Duck Arm at the end of the day and threw the line in, they were able to be legal and aboveboard. Suffice to say we had loads of fun – and no fish were caught. But the idea behind this sort of framework is to create a more seamless opportunity for people to have the required licences, to be legal, but also to cut out the overburden of doubling up.

I understand from the 2023–24 budget briefings that the Allan government have set aside $3 million for this delivery of the digital services, but perplexingly, in anticipation, the cost could actually increase to $60 million in that delivery in the 2024–25 financial year. Some of that discussion could be around the increased workload and doubling of those transactions and traffic to the website. Let us hope that there are certainly some efficiencies and that we do not see doubling and doubling and doubling, as we have seen in other government-driven projects. I will just leave that there, because otherwise I will get started. The other thing is around that cost recovery basis. If it is a cost recovery basis, how does it seem to go into that $60 million? These are some of the questions that I think people have raised and that have been raised with me.

One of the major components of the bill is certainly that seamless end-to-end service delivery – and I have just spoken about the need to reduce having to go to different websites et cetera – and the identity verification and electronic ID. I think probably one thing that I would like to put on record, and I know I was at a National Party meeting the other day in Sale and having our normal meeting as we do from time to time, is the concern that some citizens have about the digital platform holding personal information and the concerns they have around the breaches of that or that that can be shared – just the protection of personal ID and personal information. Indeed I think one very good comment that came out of those discussions was that they always need to be opt-in. They always need to be volunteer, we will call it, or non-compulsory. Certainly there are many pieces of information that are held in positions that I am sure I do not know – information in my particular space and size. I used to think that if you had a tax file number the government tended to know a lot about you anyway, but securing that electronic ID and providing some surety that it is not compulsory – that these are opt-in processes – can therefore reduce that concern around the sharing of information and the misappropriation of that information. We have seen cyberbreaches in recent times, which have certainly compromised I think people’s medical history and financial banking as well, so there needs to be tight regulation around that. There need to be those black walls so that we can keep away from indeed the dark web, and these sorts of things should be voluntary.

The other thing, which I know my colleague Tim McCurdy raised and is very pertinent too, is about just making sure that when these digital platforms come on board there is inclusivity and accessibility for people, first of all where IT is not their first language, we will say, and they have concerns, where English is not their first language or for those who do have certain disabilities or who may be illiterate – there are indeed people who are illiterate, and in the past it was easy to walk in, take your form and get it stamped in an office in the various sectors – and just ensuring that the non tech savvy and those with difficulties with technology are served well and supported. I am just putting on record that the government still needs to be mindful about these sorts of issues and, again, for those multicultural people – the wonderful people that make up such a vast number in our state – where English is a concern for them, that there are those pathways that are able to make sure they can access these services. I really think that the digital pathways are not specifically addressed in this bill, and many in our ethnic communities may suffer a reduced delivery from the government due to lack of adequate transition and translation into their required language. So I am just putting that on the record.

Finally, I think it is important to create efficiencies. We all carry our phones with us – 90 per cent of us would carry our phones with us – and have access to the improvements and the specialisations that can occur with modern technology as long as those other protections are put in place, and with that I will happily end my contribution.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:04): I appreciate the contributions by colleagues on all sides of the chamber so far. I wish to make my contribution, which will be partially unique and partially not quite so unique as what has already been contributed. I speak today in support of the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023. This bill enhances the capacity of Service Victoria to act as the central point of access for end-to-end government services. The bill will enable more government services to be provided online, enshrining simpler, faster and easier access to government services. It simplifies and modernises the identity verification process and improves administrative efficiency through the public sector. The bill supports the role of Service Victoria in furthering the digital transformation of the public sector in Victoria. This will ensure that government services are able to readily adapt to technical change.

The bill puts in place recommendations for legislative reform that came from the independent review into the Service Victoria Act 2018 in June 2022. It amends the Service Victoria Act 2018 to clarify the purposes of the act, and it will authorise partnerships between Service Victoria and non-government agencies to deliver services jointly or on behalf of other service agencies. It will bring the information management and privacy requirements for Service Victoria under the Service Victoria Act 2018 into line with broader Victorian government requirements.

This bill will enable the CEO of Service Victoria to make agreements with non-government entities to better provide services for all Victorians using Service Victoria and the digital platform. It will set out further powers for the Service Victoria CEO and ensure further support for digital delivery of services provided by government by establishing a centralised point of access for those government services. The bill ensures electronic identity credentials are managed and governed by identity verification standards made by the minister under section 41 of the Service Victoria Act 2018. It is about simplifying and modernising the delivery of government services. It is designed around the needs of people using the system and makes it more convenient to navigate, allowing users to interact with government online when it suits them. We saw the successful use of the Service Victoria app during the COVID-19 pandemic with QR code check-ins, and that soon expanded to paying for car registration and ambulance subscriptions and assistance for those struggling with the cost of living.

The Service Victoria app has a digital wallet where Victorians can securely store identification documents. This includes working with children cards, veterans cards, seniors cards and much more, as described by my colleagues already. Currently 7 million devices have the app installed, and more than 1 billion transactions have occurred through Service Victoria, with consistently high customer satisfaction ratings, as Mr Galea mentioned. This bill is about streamlining customer service to make a centralised place for customers’ information and credentials. Although the service profile is different, the services offered will not be dissimilar to an Apple Wallet, for example. Like Apple Wallet, with these changes Service Victoria will be easier to navigate, more intuitive and likely to result in Victorians using the Service Victoria app for more convenience. For all of us, less passwords is much better than more passwords – I can personally vouch for that. This ensures that a customer does not need to continually provide the same information over and over to different agencies. This is achieved by allowing for a re-usable electronic identity through Service Victoria.

In June 2022 an independent review into the Service Victoria Act was conducted by Dr Claire Noone, as mentioned previously. The review brought about several legislative recommendations which this bill implements. The amendments will form the next steps in the government’s digital strategy of better, fairer and more accessible services. It will ensure that the act keeps up with the ever-evolving technology landscape and keep government service delivery at the highest quality possible.

This bill is about removing the red tape and convoluted and complex processes that impact Service Victoria’s ability to be flexible and deliver quality services. This will no doubt be a relief to customer service personnel in government agencies but also to customers. We all know that feeling when we are asked to fill out yet another form about ourselves when first accessing a service. In fact every time we fill out a separate form and hand it over the counter we do run the risk of information being inadvertently inaccurately recorded, and also we place ourselves at risk through the individual’s cybersecurity capability. I was in a coffee shop yesterday. They were on day one of implementing their QR code system, and they were very curious about their customers’ experience. Once I scanned their system I was asked for personal details. I was asked for my email address, and the person I was with was asked for even more information. We did not feel that comfortable. They asked us for feedback, so we let them know that we were not that comfortable. We had a good chat and sorted it through, but the reality is I think it is fair that I should know that cafe’s capability around cybersecurity before I handed over my information, particularly my personal details, just to get a cup of coffee. We sorted it all out and we got it all fixed.

This bill brings amendments to end-to-end service delivery that address these challenges as they relate to Service Victoria services, as I described earlier. This is about removing the need for a customer to be passed from government service to government service and instead centralising everything into one place. This bill will also result in reductions to back-office administration. I do not think it is very exciting for staff to be doing all this data entry over and over again either. It reduces the need for new regulations to be made when delivering new services or obtaining ministerial approval for operational matters. This is about making Service Victoria faster, efficient, cost effective and secure. This bill gives greater flexibility to Service Victoria to implement new services or support programs by removing legal instruments currently required by the act. When Service Victoria is setting up a support program in response to, say, an emergency scenario like the bushfires, storms and power outages we have had this week, it will make it much easier for those affected to access the services available to them nice and quickly. Of course we know only too well from this week just how important it is to respond quickly when disaster hits. I imagine you would not want to spend all your time filling in forms, when the fire is raging through your community, to validate your identity. It will mean those needing the support will get the help they need faster. Service Victoria will be able to bundle services like outdoor recreation licences and permits, for example, into a single application, meaning time saved when applying or renewing your fishing licence, boat or trailer registration and marine licence.

An extremely important part of these amendments is the ability for Service Victoria to work with businesses outside of government. This will see customers greatly benefit from being able to use their verified record of identity stored on the device, on the Service Victoria app, with other organisations. This means greater security for customers’ sensitive data. It removes the requirement for the data to be stored in multiple places and third-party locations. It will also enable Service Victoria to collect charges from businesses that benefit from using the service. Importantly, any engagement with external organisations will be designed with data protection at the forefront. This would include using enforceable provisions under contracts. Charges obtained by Service Victoria would be set in line with government cost-recovery guidelines. Through agreement with other states and territories, the Victorian government will ensure that all digital identification and verifiable credentials are aligned to a common standard. This provides Service Victoria with greater flexibility to align to both national and international standards as they change. It also ensures that Service Victoria could potentially participate in the Australian government digital identity system by ensuring the act is principles based and that inconsistent provisions are removed.

This bill will repeal the requirement for formal letters to be sent if more identity information needs to be checked. It will also repeal the unused identity verification review pathway via the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Let us clear up their list, hey. The review pathway was introduced in 2018, and since that time Service Victoria has verified over 1.5 million identities with no VCAT reviews sought. The repeal will not change the right to seek a review via internal review, complain to integrity bodies or seek judicial review – all of those rights remain.

Currently the Service Victoria Act 2018 contains unique information management requirements. The bill removes those requirements and aligns information management protection to the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and the Health Records Act 2001. Information will be held with a minimalistic approach in accordance with Victoria’s retention and disposal authority under the Public Records Act 1973.

This bill implements the legislative recommendations coming from the independent review. By adopting these recommendations into the amendments discussed we will see a faster, more efficient delivery of government services online through Service Victoria. The bill will modernise and futureproof Service Victoria, giving access to more innovative, end-to-end delivery of services. It will greatly improve customer and business experience when interacting with government by providing a more consistent, centralised digital platform. I must say I really appreciate double-clicking when I pay with my Apple Wallet. This bill provides a really fantastic, simple approach to identity and to renewal, as has been described by many of my colleagues in the chamber today. Finally, it will reduce the regulatory red tape and obstacles to allow continued technological growth for Service Victoria. I commend this bill to the house.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (15:18): I want to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023, an important bill. The government is a bit late to the party on digitisation of government services. We certainly saw during the pandemic how far behind we were in all sorts of ways, from contact tracing to regional travel voucher schemes and our interactions with businesses, which made Victorians’ lives so much harder than everywhere else. This bill goes some way to addressing those issues but not nearly far enough.

I want to touch on a couple of issues, particularly the digital drivers licence. It has been long promised by this government but never really delivered. I look jealously at my wife, who is from New South Wales; when she lived there she could just have her digital licence wherever she went. Yet Victorians wait years and years and years, if not decades, to keep up with the rest of the country on digital drivers licences. Why is that – because this Labor government has not done the work. They have not invested in digital technologies that make government more efficient and easier for people. This government has a knack for focusing on what works best for the bureaucracy rather than what works best for each and every Victorian. They are very much an inward-facing government when it comes to digitisation of government and government services rather than outward facing and customer focused on actual people and their issues and what they need to make their lives that little bit easier, whether it be digital drivers licences, whether it be voucher schemes, whether it be contact tracing, whether it be dealing with Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria or whether it be dealing with different checks and IDs and access to government services.

I want to touch on the digital drivers licence rollout, because we know this whole process has been a bit of a bungle for this government. Another bungle we saw, which the Treasurer has apologised for, was a huge technical error that led to 57,000 motorists being incorrectly named in an email about new drivers licences. It was reported by several media outlets at the time, but a report by the Herald Sun said it was a major technical error:

It’s understood about 57,000 motorists in Ballarat received an email from VicRoads, prompting them to register their interest for the trial.

But motorists were left confused when they were addressed by the wrong surname.

Craig Hughes told the Herald Sun he originally dismissed the email he received about 5pm on Wednesday.

“Dear Craig Taylor …

It was absolutely botched, this scheme. You have to question whether Victorians’ privacy was interfered with.

Treasurer Tim Pallas apologised for the bungle, acknowledging it was unnecessary and had caused a “degree of administrative burden”.

Everything is an administrative burden for the government. It appears they stuffed up at the first hurdle. They talk a big game when it comes to modernising digital government but cannot even get the basics right in an email. Clearly, if they had these processes right, they would not need to be using a mail merge, which they clearly stuffed up. In the process many people’s names were incorrect and other people’s names were exposed to people that should not have had them. That was a clear stuff-up and a clear failure.

No stuff-up was more stark than what we saw during the pandemic – failures with contact tracing, hotel quarantine and the way that government interacted with businesses. That whole process in the pandemic could have been a lot better for all Victorians had the government done the necessary work investing in digital infrastructure – investing in digital services that make Victorians’ lives easier.

I want to quote a bit from an essay put together by my friend Matthew Lesh from the Institute of Public Affairs, who wrote in an essay on state capacity throughout the pandemic:

Whether countries took these steps ultimately came down to the underrated question of competence. A University of Munich study concluded that “government effectiveness is significantly associated with decreased death rates”, after controlling for various factors including population age, health system capacity and government policy response.

‘State capacity’ means:

… the ability to effectively decide and implement good policy. State capacity is no easy task. Governments often lack skills, resources and knowledge. This leads to persistent and widespread … failure.

One example of that failure really is on the recovery from COVID. If you look at New South Wales, they had Dine and Discover vouchers, where people on their Service NSW app could easily interact with businesses and the business would automatically get a discount on that transaction – fantastic. Then you had the government’s regional travel voucher scheme, where the government offered $200 for people to get away to regional Victoria – a good idea in theory. They completely bungled the process. Their website crashed, I believe several times, and people were left without vouchers. They had to give out new vouchers. Of course it involved a system where people had to pay up-front and provide a receipt to government by various means of communication, including by fax, in order to get their money back well after the travel had actually taken place. I mean, compare the pair and the customer experience. If you were a small business wanting to take advantage of that opportunity, in a system like they had in New South Wales it would instantly be discounted once the QR code was scanned and the regional travel voucher scheme was shown, and then you had your remaining vouchers in your app. The businesses have a coordinating business side of that as well. In New South Wales they have business concierge services through Service NSW so they can set up new businesses and have all the forms there in one place. Victoria does not have anything near close to that, because as I said, Victoria is a bureaucracy-first state, where this government will allow and do what works best for the bureaucracy.

We saw that during the pandemic. Contact tracing was a perfect example of that. It was time sensitive and required data sharing, cross-agency coordination, rapid training and substantial community trust and knowledge to avoid lockdowns. Of course Victoria did not avoid those lockdowns as well as any other state. I mean, our contact tracing used pen and paper and fax machines. It was too slow. Contacts waited up to two weeks to be identified and notified about potential exposure, whereas people in New South Wales were contacted within hours of coming into close contact with someone who had COVID. The process was almost instant. And we wonder why we had the longest lockdowns – because this government had not done its work.

This government is too focused on what pleases and what works best for bureaucrats rather than what works best for Victorians. I think Victorians ought to be asking questions, and they do ask questions, about why Victoria is so far behind on this stuff. Why do we always get it wrong? If you look at the amount of lockdowns we had compared to New South Wales, people were waiting two weeks to find out if they were exposed. People were finding out as they already had COVID that they had already come into contact with someone, rather than before, so they could take themselves into isolation if they had been a close contact and therefore minimise the risk of passing COVID on to other people. But that never actually happened in Victoria because our system involved fax machines and pen and paper rather than a decentralised system where we put the power in place with our health services so that it all could be on one system. I mean, people were sending contact tracing reports by fax to different government services. It was an absolute stuff-up – a Labor-made stuff-up.

By contrast, New South Wales citizens could use Service NSW to apply for a cross-border permit. Officials worked overnight to ensure the system was in place in time. This was only possible due to a long-term investment in state capacity by the New South Wales government. For someone who used both sides of that border crossing permit, the Service NSW side was definitely easier. The Victorian side was, again, pen and paper rather than a digitised version that was easier for people. We had many workers on the Victorian side that had to cross that felt longer delays getting to and from work than people in New South Wales. It is no wonder all these regional independents who were backing in the government’s approach lost their seats. People found it really difficult to cross the border, and we know crossing the border in a timely way is very important to those communities.

Again, this was only possible due to long-term investment. Service NSW was established in 2013 to improve customer service using modern technology. It brought together dispersed functions, thousands of phone numbers and hundreds of websites into a one-stop shop by phone and at more than 100 retail fronts. It was an entirely new agency, whose leadership and front line largely came from private sector customer service roles. They got in, and I want to credit Dominic Perrottet and also Victor Dominello on the work they did. Government actually realised that government might not know best on this. They actually got the entire tech sector, all the big firms that specialise in digital technology, and brought them in to consult with government on how best to deliver this. One would think that would be a good idea on the other side, but I doubt they have even attempted to do that – and of course we face the consequences.

Again, Service NSW is way ahead of the game in terms of digital drivers licences, public transport card top-ups, tools to ease the cost of living – all in the one app – check-in for COVID-19 venue contact tracing and a free and dedicated business concierge to guide entrepreneurs through the process of applying to start a small business. You can say that Service NSW has saved the state billions by digitising transactions that previously required expensive manual processing. One very good example is the amount of forms that you fill out when a family member passes away. For a lot of people that is a devastating time in life; you just want as little government as possible. They reduced the amount of pages of forms from something like 30 to two. That is a government achievement in itself. It might not have the biggest economic impact, but in terms of the impact on someone’s life, we should not have to contact five government departments and federal governments and local governments to notify them of this; government should be able to do that for the people.

Calls in regard to Service NSW are picked up within minutes by real humans, not machines, and Service NSW had a satisfaction rating of more than 95 per cent – 95 per cent. I wonder what the satisfaction rating is for Service Victoria. Many times you click on Service Victoria in the app and you go to a government service, and it will open up another browser. That is not the way that apps should work. I know it might suit the departments and agency heads and department secretaries for them to go to their website, because there are all these turf wars that I know go on within the bureaucracies, but people actually want all their services within one app. Service Victoria does not have any shopfronts; it takes you to other places. We know it had difficulties with the solar rebate public beta – a 40 per cent failure rate in facial identification. The government has monumentally failed in its duty to Victorian people to ensure we have state capacity, to ensure we have efficient government services and government delivery that is focused on customer service – not focused on the bureaucracy, like we always get from this Labor government, but focused on hardworking Victorians.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:33): I also rise to speak on the Service Victoria Amendment Bill 2023. I would state from the outset that the Libertarian Party will not be opposing this bill. It does some good things. It removes some of the red tape and allows a digital transformation of Service Victoria, and we do not object to removing red tape or getting better value for taxpayers in delivery of government services. However, like all technology, these things are a double-edged sword. If you have a hammer, it can be used to build a house or hit someone over the head. If you use fire, another technology, you can use it to cook your dinner or keep warm or you can use it to burn down a tobacco shop. Also, if you have a Service Victoria app, you can use it to update your drivers licence details or you could use it to set up a dystopian limitation on human rights that stops people accessing businesses based on whether or not they refuse drugs mandated by the state – and that is exactly what we saw this app used for in the last term of Parliament.

The vaccine passport was one of the most shameful periods in this state’s history, where we limited the right to freedom of movement – whether or not people can access buildings, whether or not they can enter government buildings and private businesses – based on this spurious notion of whether or not they decided to have vaccines mandated by the state. I hope that this sort of thing never, ever happens again. The only reason it was able to happen during the pandemic is because of the emergency powers that were enacted at the time, and pre the pandemic bill, these human rights assessments which were supposedly happening were never released to the public. I have spoken at length many times about these human rights violations. I still do not feel that there has been a proper reckoning of this. The people were harmed by this; the children were harmed by this. If you recall, children were not allowed to go to a school uniform shop to try on their uniform because they had made a choice not to have the COVID vaccine. There was a teenage girl trying on clothes outside of the shop – if you remember, this happened – and there were many, many situations where children were denied access to shops. Many of these children are never going to trust the government again, I can tell you. This was a shocking application of this type of technology. It is absolutely imperative – and I will do everything that I can while I am a member of this Parliament to make sure of it – that any of these apps are actually taking into account the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities in Victoria, that human rights are respected and that we are using these technologies for good rather than evil, like we saw during the last term.

There is another consequence of this type of technology – less dramatic, but very dramatic for the people affected by it. I know – and I know I have spoken with many other MPs and they have the same issue – constituents come to my office who cannot navigate government services, either because they do not have a smartphone or because they do not have good English language skills. So my staff and I assume the staff of many other electorate offices help these people – many of them are elderly people – to navigate these services. I hope that the minister will provide some insight in her summing-up on how elderly people who are not proficient with technology may still be able to access these services. It would be helpful I think even if you could download a PDF of any form within the app so that electorate officers can download it and print it out and give it to people who need help with that. But it is a problem. We saw that that was a big problem during the pandemic, when lots of older people just did not have smartphones. That turned out to be a huge problem during the pandemic. With the centralisation and digitisation of government services, that could be a problem still in the future. I know that many people just assume that everyone has a smartphone and everyone has internet access and everyone knows how to use it, and I know from my experience that that is simply not the case. Those people should not be forgotten when the government is providing services, so I will be very interested to hear what the minister has to say about that in her summing-up.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (15:39): I move, by leave:

That the bill be now read a third time.

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): Pursuant to standing order 14.28, the bill will now be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill without amendment.