DOCTORS DISPUTE

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): Will the Minister for Health explain why his department is continuing to offer AWAs when WorkChoices is dead? Visiting medical specialists to our public hospitals are usually employed pursuant to the agreement negotiated between the Department of Health and SASMOA in 2006. Individual contracts have, however, been offered to some specialists, including vascular surgeons, neurosurgeons and radiologists, to name a few. The opposition is informed that individual contracts will now be offered to cardiac surgeons at the Flinders Medical Centre.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:20): I think the Leader of the Opposition really needs to go back to industrial relations school to understand what he is talking about, if he indeed ever went to one. Maybe when he did his postgraduate work he did not cover IR matters.

I can assure the member and the house that the government of South Australia is not offering AWAs to any of its employees, particularly in the health department. SASMOA have, from time to time, tried to characterise some of the arrangements we have in place in that way, thus trying to blacken our name, but they are incorrect when they make that claim. It is typical of the opposition that it would have picked up those kinds of claims, carried them in here and tried to give them credibility. We know how the opposition operates.

The reality is that the arrangements that we have with the visiting medical officers (VMOs), which arrangements have been in place for many years, are based on arrangements which are entered into by the government with the union on behalf of its members, but they are not registered in an industrial relations sense. They are contractual arrangements which have been entered into, and that is the nature of those arrangements.

In my view, it would be good if they were registered agreements. That might mean we would have some control over the breakouts that occur from time to time outside the arrangements that have been met. I am not sure that SASMOA would welcome that, but it would be interesting to see what they have to say. So, maybe you can talk to them about that aspect as well.