Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2023–24

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:38): I rise to speak to the budget papers 2023–24. I know that I do not have a lot of time, but I will be speaking to this in the coming weeks because this budget is an absolute shocker. It is the worst budget. We have got a government that is out of control with its spending, as I have previously mentioned. I want to just go to some points in the budget. I want to go to the Department of Health’s mission statement and the objectives that they state in the budget. The mission statement talks about the vision, which is that:

Victorians are the healthiest people in the world.

Well, that is all very well to have a mission statement, but really it is just words on a piece of paper because the health outcomes of Victorians are the worst in the country. The amount of money spent per capita and the outcomes for Victorians who cannot get a hospital bed and who cannot get an ambulance describe just the dire situation of our health system. It goes on to say:

… the Government’s commitment to a stronger, fairer, better Victoria by developing and delivering policies, programs and services that support, protect and enhance the health, wellbeing and safety of all Victorians.

Well, they are not doing that either. They are failing on so many measures. Even by their own performance standards they are continually failing to meet the targets. It is in black and white here in the budget papers, where those performance targets are continually not being met.

This is all very well and the government will put out their spin machine and they will get their big team of media gurus that are in every department, every agency and in the Premier’s office talking about what they are doing and their by-line about what matters.

Actually what matters is delivery of good health care. I am increasingly frustrated, having worked in the health system and having been a patient and had the tremendous care of those who work in the health system, that Victorians are not getting the health care they deserve and need because this government has continually let them down.

They were failing before COVID hit – underinvestment, years of mismanagement – and now we have got COVID being used as an excuse because it tipped the system way over. The pandemic and the lockdowns ended years ago, but the impacts of those lockdowns, the impacts of those government decisions, are lasting. And they are very, very severe, because the numbers of young people with eating disorders and people with mental health disorders have increased. We know in lockdown family violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse were terrible. There were so many issues, and the devastation for those families that were not able to see and be with their loved ones. Those issues are still having an impact as we speak today in 2023 even though I am talking about a number of years ago.

In the government’s own performance measures they are letting us down; they are not doing what these objectives and the mission statement are trying to achieve. The objectives say:

• Keep people healthy and safe in the community

• Care closer to home

• Keep improving care

• Improve Aboriginal health and wellbeing

• Move from competition to collaboration

That is just code for amalgamations. That is code for a whole lot of closures of systems. That is code for not having care closer to home. That is code for having less services out in rural and regional Victoria. The objectives refer to:

• A stronger workforce –

we know the workforce plan is not there; we know there are population projections, but the workforce is not there –

• A safe and sustainable health system.

Our health system was once a proud health system, but it is a system now that has got systemic issues right through it. It needs total reform and to be looked at, because whatever the government is doing, it is not working. It is seriously not working, because the health outcomes, the number of Victorians waiting for elective surgery – as I have spoken about so many times – is far too high. I am not going to cop another excuse about ‘It was the previous federal government’s fault,’ ‘It was Jeff Kennett’s fault,’ ‘It was COVID’s fault,’ ‘It’s the RBA’s fault.’ We are sick of the excuses. It is 2023. We went into lockdown to protect our health system, to get it under control, yet it is worse than ever. The investment has failed, and the outcomes for Victorians are getting worse. It is here in the budget papers. I will have more to say on that in future weeks.