Thursday, 24 September 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:09): (2851) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action I am seeking is for the minister to provide the amount spent last financial year on agency nursing staff to relieve the stress on nurses from excessive overtime and workload. We know we are not going to get the annual reports, because the Parliament is not sitting. We have got no transparency from this government. They refuse to release any data, and we are not going to understand exactly the true state of the health system. I am asking in this adjournment to be provided with this, and the reason I am doing so is because health services are struggling under very severe financial pressure. Many are in deficit. Many are very concerned about the operations that they are expected to be undertaking. At the same time they have got these workforce shortages that are looming next year and in the out years. These shortages are a direct consequence of a government that has failed to properly plan for and manage the growing demand on our public health system.

I have raised today the issue around graduate nurses – 6400 will graduate this year and less than 3000 will get a placement. Those letters are going out. I do not know where the minister is. I do not think she knows what she is doing. But I am telling you, there are thousands of nurses in this state who are graduating who will not get jobs. They are going interstate, and next year, the year after and the year after that it is only going to get worse. We have got this absolute dilemma on our hands. This is a government so inept that it has allowed this to happen. They have let down Victorians and they are letting down those frontline workers – the doctors, nurses and everybody that works in our health system – in being able to do the work that they need to do to give patients the care that they deserve and need.

The nurses and everyone are facing this unsustainable workload. The pressures are huge. Occupational violence is going through the roof. They are taking time off because of what is going on. I hear from nurses who ring me directly to say that they are asked to do overtime because the shortages are there and the only staff they have got are graduate nurses. That is not safe. This is a huge issue, and it is a massive, massive failure by Labor, who have been in government in this state for 12 years and have made this system an absolute mess. Victorians deserve a health system that is properly staffed, financially sustainable and has the capacity to meet the needs of the community. Labor, I say again, have failed every single Victorian. They do not have a plan. They have got no ideas – they have run out of those. Only a Jess Wilson government will deliver the disciplined management of health and fix this broken health system.