That is made abundantly clear in data relating to ambulance response times.

The Border Mail highlighted figures from back in February that show Indigo, for the final three months of 2018, had the worst response times for urgent call-outs in Victoria.

The issue has shown some improvement, as Indigo's statistics for the June quarter showed the number of code one ambulances arriving within 15 minutes had gone up from 31.1 per cent in 2018 to 34.3 per cent.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the people of Indigo Shire are not getting the same access to what is such an essential emergency service.

Indigo, of course, is not alone in regional Victoria and Australia in having such issues.

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Indeed, it is symptomatic of how often rural areas are the poor relations of the big cities, across so many aspects of our everyday lives.

Contact a country council and they are sure to relay stories of the inadequacies of the ambulance service they receive.

As mayor Bernard Gaffney says, there remains a lack of equity in the provision of ambulances between country and metropolitan areas.

"I understand there's much further distances," he says, " but we certainly have not got the traffic congestion like you've got in Melbourne."

The code one response times cannot just be swept aside.

Indeed, Ambulance Services Minister Jenny Mikakos really has no excuse but to properly investigate Indigo's situation and to come up with real, workable solutions.

The consequences of this not happening are all too clear, given that call-outs so often can be life-and-death events.

And it certainly isn't a situation of a bush council taking the big stick to government.

The problem simply is the reality.

But the government also cannot just rely on rehashed platitudes about the inadequacies of previous governments.

Labor has been in power for long enough now that talk of blame or responsibility cannot be directed elsewhere.