Woke values for the able-minded

The Andrews government cannot duck responsibility for Ambulance Victoria spending $760,000 on diversity and inclusion officers when patients were dying waiting for ambulances. Both the organisation and the government point out that the move was recommended by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner, Ro Allen. But it is up to elected leaders, not officials, to determine spending priorities, especially on services where lives are on the line.

Victorian voters would find sections of Commissioner Allen’s report on the 17-month inquiry into a “toxic culture” at Ambulance Victoria illuminating reading. Decrying “attitudinal and structural barriers” that “continue to impede equal access to employment and career advancement opportunities, particularly for women and people of diverse backgrounds”, the report lists those barriers. Among others, they include “continued influence of the stereotype of paramedics as white, male, of able-body and mind, confident, stoic and the family breadwinner”.

At the risk of being accused of pandering to “harmful stereotypes”, we believe most people needing ambulance services, and their distressed loved ones, would welcome ambos “of able-body and mind”, male or female. Some might even be “family breadwinners” – shame!

Allen, who was promoted to the VEOHRC role after being appointed by the Andrews government in 2015 as Victoria’s inaugural Commissioner for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and gender diverse, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) Communities, recommended Ambulance Victoria “establish a dedicated division to drive reform”.

Reform, yes. The state’s ambulance service needed it in view of problems of ramping and the fact that 33 Victorians died after waiting too long for ambulances between December 2020 and May this year. But embracing the woke agenda is not in the interests of Victorian taxpayers who fund the ambulance service.

Enough is enough. Woke values are not those of many Victorians.