Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (16:12): I rise today to speak on the Safe Patient Care (Nurse to Patient and Midwife to Patient Ratios) Amendment Bill 2025. This is a bill that is very close to my heart. It is all about creating the best healthcare system possible in our great state of Victoria. It will set in stone one-to-one nurse to occupied bed ratios in intensive care units on all shifts for all levels 1 and 2 hospitals. It will mean that every occupied ICU bed has a dedicated nurse always assigned to it. It will also improve staffing ratios in resuscitation cubicles in emergency departments on morning shifts, bringing morning shifts into line with afternoon and night shifts. It will establish one-to-four midwife-to-patient ratios in postnatal and antenatal wards on night shifts, down from one to six. It will also introduce an in-charge nurse on night shifts in standalone high-dependency units and coronary care units.

These are the types of laws that only Labor governments introduce. We improved ratios after the 2018 state election, and now we are protecting and strengthening them even more. The bill will benefit not only the lives of nurses and midwives but also the lives of so many Victorian patients. It is laws like this that made me want to run for politics, as I am someone who had benefited from our public healthcare system as a little girl and who would not be here without it. I saw our nurse-to-patient ratios in action six months ago when I was admitted to hospital with skyrocketing blood pressure before my son was born. The nurses and midwives were real-life superheroes, caring for me with such kindness and expertise and putting my family at ease when they feared the worst. Their skill, dedication and passion blew me away, and it was comforting to know that they could focus on a smaller number of patients rather than having to juggle so much more. This is exactly what nurses and midwives have told us that they wanted. We listened, and we are now acting so that they can be even more supported in our healthcare system.

We know that those opposite do not believe in nurse-to-patient ratios. They tried to claw them back after the first ratios were introduced by the Bracks Labor government in 2000. They treated nurses terribly, and they tried to force them to trade their ratios away as part of their enterprise agreement negotiations. Many nurses across the Ripon electorate remind me of this regularly. It was outrageous, and it is exactly why we enshrined nurse- and midwife-to-patient ratios into law back in 2015. Now we are building on this to ensure the very best care for Victorian patients and their families. These changes are backed by $101.3 million in the 2023–24 budget and build on our government’s 28.4 per cent pay rise for our hardworking nurses and midwives. It will not only help retain current nurses and midwives but also encourage a new generation of them to take up a career in health care.

Since we came to government we have grown our healthcare workforce by nearly 50 per cent, which is truly incredible. That are an additional 40,000 nurses, midwives, doctors, allied health professionals and other hospital staff in the state’s health services. Almost one in four of these roles has been created in rural and regional Victoria, including our amazing health services across Ripon.

I want to give a particular shout-out to the hardworking staff at East Grampians Health Service in Ararat, East Wimmera Health Service in St Arnaud, Central Highlands Rural Health in Creswick and Clunes, Grampians Health in Ballarat, Inglewood and Districts Health Service, Maryborough District Health Service, Beaufort and Skipton Health Service and the Elmhurst Bush Nursing Centre. They do incredible work to deliver world-class health care in our rural and regional communities despite growing demand. They have benefited from our Labor government, with more funding, upgrades and support than ever before, and now we are protecting and strengthening their patient ratios.

We have also made nursing and midwifery degrees free to grow the workforce of the future, with so many of my constituents taking up this opportunity, and this is in stark contrast to those opposite. We all remember when they were in power and they went to war with our nurses, our midwives and our paramedics and when the former health minister in the other place David Davis had his department draw up contingency plans to replace thousands of nurses who were concerned that they would have to resign because they could not safely care for patients. They called our paramedics ‘stooges’ and tried to undercut nurse-to-patient ratios. They continue to treat healthcare workers with contempt, and that is why Victorians continue to not vote for them.

While we are redeveloping hospitals and urgent care units in Maryborough, Ararat, Ballarat and Inglewood, they are thinking about how they can cut, close and privatise our healthcare system into the future. Labor will always back our nurses and midwives, and that is exactly what this bill does. It is the least we can do for those who save lives every single day, including mine and my son’s. I commend the bill to the house.