HEALTH SYSTEM

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:49): My question is to the Premier. What action will he take, what responsibility will he take, to control overpayments and inefficiencies in the health system, identified in the Paxton report? As well as concerns raised about time and cost wastage from inappropriate workloads for nurses and the culture of bailout funding, the Paxton report further identifies problems with demand and capacity management—lack of clear direction for regional hospital management, and over-award clinical payment arrangements. Who is responsible?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:50): All I can say is that I think the taxpayers of South Australia are lucky that we are responsible, and not the other side, because we have faced the issue of efficiency in our hospitals and we are going to deal—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Ask any number of questions you like. Wait until I have stopped speaking, though, Vickie, because I cannot hear you, for a start. You are just making noise. What I would say to the house is that we are working through these recommendations in a serious way with those in the workforce. We do have issues with over-award payments, and part of the culture (which we have now changed by the Health Care Act) is that we now have a department which runs the health system and we do not have individual hospital management which makes sweetheart deals with workers in particular circumstances. There will be one set of industrial arrangements in place, not multiple-sited industrial relations. That is what happened in the past, and it is not to the good of the system.