Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I will begin with the questions around the RDVSA and the redress issue. I met with MHS very recently. The tender process, I understand, is drawing to a conclusion and will be finalised soon. With respect to the observation that there was a relatively short time to put in expressions of interest to the tender, I am advised that a short time for providing expressions of interest to a tender process is not at all unusual.

The independent probity officer was consulted on the time frame of the tender process overall, including the time allowed for organisations to respond to the EOI. The time for the EOI was determined to be in line with the level of information required in the EOI. With the formal tender process itself, the applicants were given 30 days to submit their tender documentation, so a short time in which to offer an EOI—it is a very simple thing to offer an EOI in the context. That was seen as reasonable by the probity officer. Those submitting their tender documentation, which RDVSA did, I understood, and in good time, were given 30 days to submit that tender documentation.

The other question was with respect to the $4 million provided in May 2015: how much of that went to RDVSA, and what the effect of that was on staffing. That was $4 million; $3.6 million of that went directly to RDVSA, which was to allow for a 50 per cent increase in staff to RDVSA. The expectation, in those circumstances, was that with that very large increase in funding, and the commensurate 50 per cent increase in staff levels at that point, there would have been a commensurate increase, an improvement, in the timeliness of calls being answered and the number of calls being answered. That did not materialise.

I have met with the union on this issue. They put the proposition that the reason it did not materialise is that there was a commensurate increase in the number of calls coming in. None of the data reflects that at all. The increase in the number of incoming calls was modest compared to the increase in funding and staffing, and so there is no explanation as to why there was not the significant improvement that we were expecting. Had we done nothing at that point, it is quite clear that we would have had a persistence of the outcomes we had been getting up to that point.

For the honourable member's benefit, the problems we were having at that point were that in the final quarter of 2015-16, following the full increase in staff—that is, the 50 per cent increase—approximately a third of calls were unanswered and the maximum wait time recorded was 88 minutes. So the reason why we took the action that we did to reform the system and offer the model that is now in operation was that that very significant increase in funding did not produce anywhere near the results that were expected or that were acceptable.

Following that, the government announced $5 million further to improve 1800RESPECT. However, that funding was provided following an independent review into the 1800RESPECT operational model, the first responder triage model. On 16 August 2016, 73 per cent of calls were answered within 20 seconds. The data from MHS between 16 August 2016 and 31 March 2017 shows that approximately 30 per cent of callers required intensive support provided by trauma specialist counsellors. The MHS data on call outcomes also shows that, of the remaining callers, 38.1 per cent received information, 34 per cent received initial trauma informed counselling and education, 19.2 per cent received information about provider options, 8.3 per cent discussed safety plans, and a small number—0.4 per cent—resulted in mandatory reporting to relevant state based—

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