Tuesday, 4 March 2025

Health services

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (19:01): (1462) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and it is in relation to the direction from government to gag Liberal and National Party MPs from speaking to health CEOs. The government has been lauding the health services plan. They made a big announcement on 10 January talking about how the networks will be lumping together hospitals and health services in their geographic regions and claiming that patients will be able to get care closer to home and be looked after in their own communities. They said in that media release that:

Local workforces and communities will … be consulted in 2025 to gain their views as well as to address each individual community’s health needs.

That is what the government has said. That is what the minister’s press release said, yet when I and my colleagues want to speak with CEOs about how it will impact their hospitals or health services and their workforce, the responses that come back include:

We have received advice from the Victorian Department of Health to refer you to the Victorian Health Minister as the matters raised in your email relate to the Victorian Health Services Plan …

Effectively, Liberal and National Party members are being gagged. Certainly I am having difficulty being able to see CEOs in my electorate. They are saying, ‘You need to get permission.’ I have never asked for permission from the minister or the health department before. We are being gagged from being able to access and meet with CEOs around the biggest reform that this government is undertaking in relation to these very controversial health network plans. I think it is a disgrace that the CEOs are being gagged from speaking to us. We have every right. If you are putting out media releases, then you should go out and correct it, Minister, and say, ‘Actually, we’ll consult with the communities, but not the local MPs.’ It is a damn disgrace.

The action I am seeking is that the minister correct this immediately – not in a month’s time when I get a response from her. I want this corrected immediately so I and my colleagues can meet with CEOs, discuss these health network plans and consult with all of our local communities on this very important matter.