The Liberals want 70 PSOs guarding Victorian hospitals. That is one in every 20 PSOs in the state, and Victoria Police is already about 1500 people short.
Jess Wilson has announced a two-year pilot at seven major hospitals, without naming the hospitals, costing the policy, or saying where the officers come from.
The Liberals will put 70 Protective Services Officers into Victorian hospitals if they win in November.
The two-year pilot would cover seven major hospitals. The announcement does not name them.
It does not say what the policy costs either, or where the officers would come from.
"Almost 24,000 violent incidents in our hospitals in a year is simply unacceptable," Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said. "That's why my team has a plan to tackle the surge in violence that is plaguing our hospitals."
The figure is real and it is grim. It works out at 65 a day. Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier, a former nurse and midwife, said staff should feel safe "whether you are triaging a patient in ED or walking to your car after ending your shift".
The PSOs would provide a security presence, respond to serious incidents, assist with prisoner guarding and escort staff to their cars.
Here is the arithmetic the release leaves out.
Victoria Police had 1417 Protective Services Officers as of June 2024. Seventy of them is one in every 20 PSOs in the state.
They would come out of a force that is already short. The Police Association put unfilled vacancies at 800 last year, with several hundred more members on long-term sick leave. State Eastern Victoria MP Melina Bath said last month the figure has grown to around 1500.
PSOs are stationed on railway platforms. Moving 70 into hospitals means taking them off those platforms, or recruiting and training 70 new ones inside a system that cannot fill the roster it has.
The release does not say which.
Nor does it mention that hospitals already employ security staff, or that the state has spent more than $47 million on occupational violence training, alarm systems and post-incident support.
There is also a problem with the number the Liberals are leading on.
The Victorian Auditor-General found the health department's occupational violence data is inconsistent between services, not comparable, and covers only nurses rather than all healthcare workers. The department's own advice says incidents are "significantly under-reported".
So 24,000 is almost certainly an undercount. It also cannot reliably tell you whether violence is rising or whether reporting is improving.
Labor announced its own response last month: a review at Northern Health, which recorded 4275 incidents in 2024-25, more than any other service in the state.
Neither side disputes that hospital staff are being assaulted at work. They disagree on what to do about it, and the state votes on November 28.
The Liberals have promised to cut one in seven public sector jobs.
They have not said whether the people guarding the hospitals are in that seven.