Thursday, 14 August 2025

Ambulance services

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:22): (1844) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Mental Health. In February I asked the Minister for Health on notice how many ambulances were called to respond to drug overdoses at the Hardmission music festival, which was held on 8 February at Werribee racecourse. The minister responded on 1 April and stated that Ambulance Victoria was engaged to provide services onsite for the duration of the event but was not required to respond with additional resources, yet when I subsequently asked the very same question about three other music festivals – Ultra, Pitch Music and Arts Festival and the Warehouse Project – the minister refused to provide me with an answer to this very important question. These festivals were sites of the government’s pill-testing trial in the wake of the Hardmission Festival in 2024, where nine people were hospitalised in a critical condition with hyperthermia after taking MDMA. In the second-reading speech for the legislation one of the aims of the trial is to:

reduce pressure on frontline services from drug poisonings and other acute episodes …

So reducing demand for ambulance services is clearly something the minister is concerned with when considering the impact of the legislation in practice at these festivals. Minister, I do not expect you to have the answer on hand, and I was not sure if you were going to be at the table. The action I seek is for you, Minister, to provide the answer to the question that the Minister for Health refused to provide to questions on notice 1969, 1970 and 1971, which is: how many ambulances were called to respond to drug overdoses at the Ultra music festival in April, the Pitch Music and Arts Festival in March and the Warehouse Project music festival in April?