Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (00:04): (2784) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Ambulance Services, and it concerns the deteriorating ambulance response times right across my Eastern Victoria Region. Despite 12 years of Labor – 12 years of a Labor government – and repeated commitments to improve ambulance services, response times across my region are continuing to deteriorate. Every major local government area in Eastern Victoria is experiencing longer wait times and declining performance. The most recent – which is not very recent – information tells us that Cardinia, Baw Baw, Latrobe, South Gippsland, Bass Coast, East Gippsland and Wellington are all in dire straits. Let us look at the stats: South Gippsland has suffered the largest decline, with the proportion of code 1 emergency responses within 15 minutes falling from 68.1 per cent to 45.3 per cent – a drop of 22 percentage points. Cardinia has declined 19 percentage points. Latrobe Valley has declined 10 percentage points. Most concerning of all, East Gippsland and Wellington residents now wait more than 19 minutes on an average code 1 ambulance response. These figures are not reflective of course of the many, many, many dedicated and professional paramedics that frequent and work so very hard in those ambulances and the times that they are sitting frustrated in emergency spaces in our hospitals. Certainly these figures reflect a system under pressure, where demand continues to rise and performance continues to decline. We know that morale has suffered for these fabulous people and we know that staff are fatigued in this space, but we also know that patients are being left in unacceptable conditions. The action I seek is for the minister to indeed explain why she has failed to release the latest health data relating to ambulance response times and explain to my Eastern Victoria Region residents why they are receiving worse service than when the Liberals and Nationals were in government.