Tuesday, 15 October 2019

In reply to  Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (13 August 2019)

Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General, Minister for Workplace Safety):

The Victorian Government recognises that a robust and well-resourced guardianship system can ensure that older Victorians are treated with dignity and protected from elder abuse. To that end, the Andrews Labor Government has provided $5.4 million over two years through the 2018-19 budget to the Office of the Public Advocate (OPA), including for additional guardianship and investigation services for people with disability. In 2017, the government provided VCAT $4.55 million to improve access to justice by modernising and streamlining its processes.

The pilot between OPA and three health networks—the Alfred, Eastern and Monash—has been a success. The project has reduced wait times for an OPA guardian to be allocated when a person is in hospital and enabled earlier transition of care. I understand that based on this initial success, the project has expanded this year to include Northern Health and Western Health. OPA and the partnering health networks are to be congratulated on the success of the project. The government is working with OPA and relevant stakeholders to consider options for continuation and expansion of this innovative approach to improve access to guardians for people in hospitals.

The government has also been working closely with VCAT to provide high quality and timely consideration of matters, including for guardianship applications. Commencing as a pilot in April 2018 with six metropolitan public hospitals, VCAT’s ‘Guardianship Hub’ extends VCAT’s online capability to enable electronic lodgement of applications and documents and online access to view relevant notices, documents and orders. Since July 2019, the Guardianship Hub has been available to all applicants wherever they are situated, including in the Northern Victoria Region. In 2019, the government provided $2.5 million for further ICT improvements to the Guardianship Hub.

VCAT advises that it regularly conducts in-hospital guardianship hearings at six metropolitan public hospitals where sufficient demand exists. Scheduling of regular in-hospital hearing days supports timelier listing of applications, which in combination with the functionality of the Guardianship Hub has provided significant time savings for applicants. The new Guardianship and Administration Act 2019, scheduled to commence by March 2020, requires VCAT to hold a hearing within 30 days of a guardianship application.