The head of Ambulance Victoria has apologised unreservedly and committed to make fundamental changes at the organisation after employees spoke out about an unsafe culture marred by disrespect, bullying and sexism.
Of those who contributed to a Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission report into Ambulance Victoria, released this morning, roughly half said they had experienced discrimination and bullying while on the job.
The report was requested by Ambulance Victoria in October 2020 after the paramedics' union and workers raised concern about an unsafe culture in the organisation.
In the commission's report, excerpts of interviews from participants spotlighted key areas of concern.
"This organisation's culture is unsafe for people who are not white males," one participant said.
"It's really bad."
Another noted they had "never come across a collective who were so routinely disrespectful to their colleagues".
Employee says their job was 'doomed' after raising sexual harassment complaint
The report noted there had been a "loss of faith" in the organisational values due to "the failure of some leaders and managers to model appropriate conduct and to hold individuals consistently to account" for doing the wrong thing.
The commission expressed concern over the reported rates of physical sexual harassment, including unwelcome touching, hugging, cornering or kissing.
It also noted "with great concern" that 33 respondents said they had experienced requests or pressure for sex or other sexual acts and 12 respondents said they had been subjected to actual or attempted rape or sexual assault while at Ambulance Victoria.
The majority of the harassment described by respondents was overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women, the report said.
Those who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer were also at heightened risk of experiencing sexual harassment compared to their heterosexual colleagues, the report said.
One participant reported retaliation and the loss of their job after putting in a complaint on sexual harassment.
"I was doomed from the start, from that minute that I put that complaint in for the sexual harassment, I was gone," the participant said.
Another said submitting a formal complaint "pretty much destroyed me".
The report also found power imbalances had arisen as a result of the organisation's male-dominated workforce and reliance on hierarchical command-and-control systems.
Those factors created "a heightened risk of unlawful and harmful workplace conduct", the report said.
"You've got to be aggressive and alpha and mean and rude," one participant said.
"This is how the whole thing started, I believe … then, once it happens to someone, they think, 'Well, I went through it, so you can go through it'. [A] rite of passage."
CEO sorry for 'deeply disturbing' culture
Ambulance Victoria CEO Tony Walker said he was "deeply disturbed" by the findings and had issued an unreserved public apology to the workforce this morning.
"I knew we had issues in the organisation," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"I'm not foolish, but to see the depth of it and the way it's ingrained in our culture was deeply disturbing".
Health Minister Martin Foley said in a statement the behaviour and culture outlined in the report was "simply unacceptable" and fell below the standards expected by the community.
He thanked those who had come forward to tell their storied and noted a second report would follow in 2022, focused on longer-term systemic reforms.
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner, Ro Allen, said Ambulance Victoria's public apology to its staff was a "fundamental piece" of the path towards fixing the issues raised in the report.
"There has sort of been a lack of reporting … because people haven't felt that it was going to make a difference, or they didn't want to be singled out," they said.
"And of course Ambulance Victoria, if you want to be a paramedic, is the only workplace in Victoria. So there's been a lot of talk about that as well."
Recommendations all accepted by Ambulance Victoria
Professor Walker said he had contemplated stepping down as CEO in the wake of the findings but, ultimately, that was a decision for the board and he was focused on making the changes the commission had recommended.
"This will be a difficult, hard piece of work for us to make change with," he said.
While labelling the report's findings "damning", Ro Allen said they did not think the solution was about heads "rolling" but "heads coming together" to rebuild trust.
The report made 24 recommendations, all of which have been accepted by Ambulance Victoria.
They include a redesign of the complaints system, a new division dedicated to driving workplace equality and a governance committee chaired by the CEO.
"This is a wake up call for Ambulance Victoria today," Ro Allen said.
"I think it's a wake up call for all directors, for all board members and CEOs, to think about what they're doing to focus on making sure that their workplaces are safe, equal, inclusive."
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said staff welfare needed to be put first in the organisation.
"The job on a good day is a very challenging job but members are telling us that some of the workplace experiences that they're having … [are] actually more stressful than some of the trauma that they see on the road," he said.
"And that's a pretty scary statement, that some of the horror that they see out there is actually not as damaging to them as the way that they're treated by their employer."
