Page 131 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018
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There are two shifts per day: a 10-hour day shift, and a 14-hour night shift. Therefore, we have 730 shifts per year. Of the 730 shifts in the 2016-17 financial year, only 427 met the minimum crewing level. That means a very significant 303 shifts, or 41.5 per cent of all shifts for the year, did not have the minimum level of crewing determined should be the case. This is a fact.
It is clear that the government has been caught out. It has been caught out overseeing a significant shortfall in resources provided to our Ambulance Service and, given the timing of the answering of my question on this matter, it has been caught out trying to keep it from the public until a positive spin could be put on it.
I first asked the minister about minimum crewing levels in our Ambulance Service on 22 September last year. I asked the minister if there were any emergency ambulance shifts since 2015-16 that fell below minimum crewing levels. As the minister well knows, answers to questions on notice are due in 30 days. But in that time the minister made many attempts to avoid, delay and deflect.
The 30-day deadline came and went and there was still no answer. One week, two weeks, went by; still no answer. More weeks, more months, no answer. By day 47—that is, 17 days overdue—the minister had not answered my question. So I followed up in the annual reports hearings with questions taken on notice in the JACS annual report hearings, and they were due in 10 business days. That deadline came and went. Still no answer!
Then we hit day 130, almost five months. One hundred and thirty days after receiving my question, the minister had finally had enough time to find a political response and, strangely enough, neutralised the answer—the shocking information that had to be given. The minister waited until he had other news to distract from the damning information. He announced new recruits and published a media release outlining new response time results and new ambulance recruits on the same day as the negative information was due to come out in the answer to my question on notice.
The media release, titled “New staff will help ACTAS meet its aspirational target of having 10 ambulance crews at the ready at any one time, and a further two ambulances available during peak periods”, went on to say:
In 2016-17, ACTAS operated approximately 427 shifts with 10 or more crews, and 303 shifts with fewer than 10.
The minister’s media release was dated 30 January 2018. When did he sign the answer to my question on notice? It was, surprisingly, 31 January 2018—a disgusting display of rank political games and a complete disrespect for the rules and practices of this place.
The minister’s language is also changing. In a classic Barr government move, the minister, having been caught out failing to meet his own minimum crewing levels, the term “minimum crewing” seems to be now being taken out and replaced with “aspirational target”.
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