Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (16:13): I rise to speak on the Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023. The Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023 is a major component of the Victorian government’s reform to the state’s 000 service. Victoria’s ailing 000 call service will be rebranded and brought under government control and its broad disbandment after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed systematic failings. Victoria’s emergency 000 service will undergo a significant transformation to improve governance, accountability and oversight under new legislation. The Triple Zero Victoria Bill 2023 will reform the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority, known as ESTA, to bring it closer to government, ensuring greater oversight and to provide clear and transparent accountability for the organisation board and chief executive officer. Under the reforms, ESTA will be renamed Triple Zero Victoria and established as a new statutory authority, led by a new board and CEO directly accountable to the Minister for Emergency Services, that draws on expertise from across the emergency and health services sectors. The proposed reform is in direct response to the independent review into the capacity, capability, service delivery and financial sustainability of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority by the former Victoria Police chief. The long-awaited report into the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority, commissioned in 2021, was finally released by the state government in May 2022.
The damning 80-page review was commissioned after persistent reports of the call system crashing and significant concerns around the effectiveness of ESTA’s capability and capacity to deliver consistent 000 services across Victoria. As early as 2015 the Victorian Auditor-General warned that there were problems within the model, but Treasury and Finance in Victoria preferred simply to top up ESTA’s budget every year post fact rather than moving to a sustainable footing. It is disappointing to note that it took the state government some six years to undertake the review, knowing that the system was struggling with dire consequences. They effectively chose to ignore the concerns and did nothing about it.
The review found that from October 2021 to March 2022 the performance of Victoria’s Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority materially degraded. Most 000 calls were not answered within 5 seconds, its standard benchmark, and often not within 10 minutes. In one case it took up to 76 minutes. The result? There were 40 events involving seriously ill or injured patients who were subject to call-answer delays. Tragically, 33 people did not survive these emergencies. The report also found that the problems with ESTA predated the pandemic. It noted that a lack of rostering flexibility in enterprise agreements for its roughly 800 operational staff played a part in its failure to meet surge demand events such as the major storms in 2021 and peak periods of the pandemic. Emergency services organisations told the review they were concerned with ESTA’s capability, service delivery and unresponsiveness to their needs. There is a long-held opinion that ESTA’s critical role meant its shortcomings were not just unfortunate but have led to multiple deaths and injuries that could have been prevented. One ESO said its request for change has been unfilled for more than 10 years.
The capability and service review made 20 recommendations to the government in order to transform ESTA’s governance, call-taking and dispatch services, technology and managed services, intelligence services and performance standards and address systemic issues within the organisation. Mr Ashton found ESTA had suffered over the years because it had been unable to recruit and retain experienced call takers to deal with peaks in demand and that its culture was risk averse and had difficulty being agile when responding to emergencies. The ad hoc nature of the year-to-year supplementary funding arrangements limited ESTA’s ability to recruit to meet demand. The review found this also limited ESTA’s ability to plan beyond 12 months or implement longer term investments to improve the service during business-as-usual and surge events. Victorians should have confidence that when they call for help in an emergency the state has the organisational resources and systems in place to ensure the very best service is given and, most importantly, in a timely manner.
We cannot put lives at risk. I am sure that we all have stories to tell and we have been aware for quite some time about the seriousness of the breakdown of this system and that reform is needed. I had a friend call 000. She has MND. She had a Panadol stuck in her throat, which is terrifying when you have lost control of your throat function, a symptom of MND. Maxine was put on hold and diverted to different call centres whilst they were trying to figure out if she was a non-emergency patient. There were delays and confusion. She ended up driving herself to the hospital rather than waiting for certainty that an ambulance would come. She had not been given certainty through the 000 call function. She underwent surgery, and the outcome could have been a lot worse.
It has been noted that the focus of Triple Zero Victoria is to be on delivering high-quality and timely call-taking and dispatch services and operational communication services, something that the patient I referred to desperately needed. This bill enables the Minister for Emergency Services to confer additional functions related to the emergency management sector on Triple Zero Victoria when it would be sensible to be do so and for the time specified in the ministerial order. An example of this is how non-emergency patient transport booking and dispatch services with ESTA are currently managed on behalf of Ambulance Victoria.
The bill also includes provisions that empower the emergency management commissioner to set performance standards that are endorsed by the Minister for Emergency Services. These outcome-based standards will be developed in consultation with Triple Zero Victoria, emergency services organisations, government departments and other related organisations. These performance standards, as a result, will be reviewed at least every five years to ensure that the standards remain fit for purpose and are meeting expectations.
In closing, I acknowledge the hardworking people who work in the 000 sector and our ambulance services. Hopefully with this bill we will address the critical failures of the past. I commend this bill to the house.