<\/p>\n
Attacks on emergency services workers have been brought into focus by the stabbing. (Supplied: Ashley Geelan)<\/p>\n
Police charged a 32-year-old man with attempted murder and he was remanded in custody.<\/p>\n
The paramedic was on-duty and wearing a uniform but was ordering a coffee at the time of the attack.<\/p>\n
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said two recent cases exposed a loophole that had allowed offenders to avoid the mandatory jail term for attacking an emergency services worker.<\/p>\n
“It says for the purpose of these laws ‘on-duty’ refers to a time where a paramedic is providing care to a patient,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said the loophole needs to be closed. (ABC News: Peter Healy)<\/p>\n
“All the other occasions where a paramedic is at work \u2014 whether they’re responding to a case, whether they’re standing by at a hospital, they might be on scene providing support to by-standers \u2014 in those circumstances they are not deemed to be on-duty and therefore those laws don’t apply.<\/p>\n
“That just can’t be the intent of what was envisaged with these laws, it was about providing safety to the people who are in uniform.”‘Senseless and horrific’<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Ambulance Victoria CEO Jordan Emery also called for a stronger deterrent to address attacks on paramedics.<\/p>\n
“When someone assaults one of my people, I want them to face the fullest consequences of the law,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The paramedic was in uniform and on-duty but was buying a coffee at the time of the attack. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
The state government said it would ask the Victorian Law Reform Commission to review the definition of “on-duty” and make changes to the law if required.<\/p>\n
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny said the government had been discussing the issue with the union since February.<\/p>\n
“What we saw yesterday was absolutely senseless and horrific and our thoughts go out to the victim and his family and to all of his colleagues,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Of course we have to have consequences for this kind of violent offending that completely meets community expectation.”<\/p>\n
Victoria’s Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny says the government has been discussing the issue with the abulance union. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Police Minister Anthony Carbines said the government will make any changes recommended by the law reform commission.<\/p>\n
“Where the law is letting down our community, and particularly our emergency services workers, we need to be tougher and we will commit to fixing it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We will bring those changes to the parliament to ensure that there are very tough sanctions and no excuses with jail time if you attack an emergency services worker.”<\/p>\n
Emergency physician Stephen Parnis was the president of AMA Victoria when the laws were introduced in 2014 and said they needed to be re-examined.<\/p>\n
“My suspicion with 12 years of hindsight is that that message is only heeded by those who would never take up violence against health workers,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.<\/p>\n
“I think they do need to tighten these loopholes.<\/p>\n
“But there are so many other areas where we have to act to reduce violence, like reducing the availability of the weapons that cause them.”<\/p>\n
He said violence in the health system had risen to the point where doctors in emergency medicine were told it is inevitable they will see or experience violence at work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Victorian government says it is moving to close a loophole that has allowed some offenders who have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2712,3798,2304,1112,22,21,3797,3795,260,3796,3073,3075,1329],"class_list":{"0":"post-2612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-ambulance","9":"tag-ambulance-victoria","10":"tag-assault","11":"tag-attack","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-austrlia","14":"tag-carbines","15":"tag-law","16":"tag-melbourne","17":"tag-on-duty","18":"tag-paramedic","19":"tag-reservoir","20":"tag-stabbing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}