Diversity jobs as ambulance waits cost lives in Victoria

Ambulance Victoria has spent more than $760,000 hiring ‘diversity and inclusion’ officers on six-figure salaries as people have been dying waiting for ambulances.

A paramedic at Melbourne's St Vincent Hospital. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Ambulance Victoria has spent more than $760,000 hiring a swath of “diversity and inclusion” officers on six-figure salaries at a time when Victorians have been dying waiting for ambulances.

The organisation and the Andrews government say the move is the implementation of a recommendation by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner.

In March, Commissioner Ro Allen handed down the second volume of a 17-month inquiry into a “toxic culture” at Ambulance Victoria, finding that harmful gender stereotypes dictating that elite paramedics at the organisation should be “white, male … confident, stoic and … the family breadwinner” were preventing women from being accepted at senior levels.

 

In November, the first volume of Allen’s inquiry detailed “widespread” reports of “incivility, disrespect, discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying and victimisation”. Allen, who was promoted to the current role having previously been 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”.

In recent weeks, the organisation has advertised six new roles through recruitment firm Jo Fisher Executive, including “Director, Diversity & Inclusion”, with a salary of $169,000+, “Senior Lead, Diversity & Inclusion” for $147,000+, “Program Lead, Equality & Workplace Reform Division” for $122,000+, “Executive Assistant to Executive Director, Equality & Workplace Reform Division” for $79,000+, “Senior Program Manager, Implementation” for $122,000+, and “Program Lead, Multicultural” for $122,000+.

The advertised minimum salaries total $761,000, and compare with an average first-year salary for an Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority ambulance call taker of $71,500, and salaries for Ambulance Victoria paramedics which range from $75,000 to $113,335.

The hires come as the Herald Sun on Monday revealed former Ambulance Victoria chairman Ken Lay was made aware of concerns about a senior female staff member who resigned following an internal investigation into bullying allegations, but was subsequently hired to manage public relations, and had an overseas trip to a Harvard management course paid for by the organisation while she was under investigation. An Andrews government spokesman cited Allen’s recommendation, saying: “Changing workplace culture and saving lives can both be done, and Ambulance Victoria is doing significant work on both fronts – including hiring record numbers of paramedics and implementing the recommendations of the VEOHRC report.”

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said the organisation continued to undertake its largest ever recruitment of paramedics, “at the same time as we are creating a new division to lead and co-ordinate efforts to create a safe, fair and inclusive organisation for our people and our patients”. “It is wrong to suggest one has priority over the other, especially as almost 1200 new paramedics have joined AV in the past 20 months,” she said.

Bella d’Abrera, director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program at think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs, accused the Andrews government and Ambulance Victoria of having “fully embraced the woke agenda to the detriment of Victorians’ lives”. “It’s unforgivable that at least 10 extra call takers could have been hired with the amount of money that the government spent on obscure theories about gender, power and race,” she said.