Nationals MP Danny O’Brien lashes state government at chaotic parliamentary hearing

Danny O’Brien has lashed out at the government in a chaotic parliamentary hearing where MPs repeatedly tried to shut down questions on the state budget.

Richmond supervised injecting room on Lennox street.

A parliamentary hearing has descended into chaos with government MPs under fire for repeatedly trying to shut down questions about the state budget.

In a withering attack Nationals MP Danny O’Brien lashed government MPs after he was repeatedly unable to ask questions of Mental Health Minister Gabrielle Williams.

“This is a joke. You guys are a joke, you’ve got no interest in accountability or transparency, you should be embarrassed,” he said.

Ahead of the outburst government MPs had tried to shut down questioning over the Ryan report into the North Richmond supervised injecting room facility.

A 25-page report titled Key Findings was published in March following a five-year review of the facility.

Victorian MP Danny O’Brien has lashed government MPs. Picture: James Ross

The government has repeatedly defended the completeness of the review amid accusations it has withheld a larger report from release.

An initial report on the facility ran to almost 400 pages.

After Ms Williams was asked about whether there was a more comprehensive report, government MPs moved to shut down questioning arguing it had nothing to do with the budget.

However Mr O’Brien insisted the question should be answered.

“(It’s) directly related to the provided in this budget for the medically supervised injecting room, what more do you want me to provide,” Mr O’Brien said.

Later in proceedings deputy chair and Liberal MP Nick McGowan clashed with Labor chair Sarah Connolly over claims Ms Williams was running down the clock to avoid answering questions.

Mr O’Brien was repeatedly unable to ask questions of Mental Health Minister Gabrielle Williams. Picture: Luis Ascui

Ms Williams is being questioned over her portfolios of Mental Health, Ambulance Services and Treaty and First Peoples.

Asked about current ambulance response times, Ms Williams refused to say, citing instead the most recent quarterly figures.

They showed Ambulance Victoria failed to hit a target of responding to 85 per cent of statewide Code 1 cases within 15 minutes between January and March of 2023.

In that time they responded to 65.2 per cent of these cases in time, a 5 percentage point increase on a record low of 60.2 per cent from the previous quarter.