PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide) (14:59): My question is to the—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Unley, order!

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Unley, leave the chamber for the rest of question time.

The honourable member for Unley having withdrawn from the chamber:

The SPEAKER: The member for Port Adelaide.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! This is one of the noisiest question times I have come across. I am not sure what is happening here today but you will behave or you will all leave. Member for Port Adelaide.

Dr CLOSE: My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister outline to the house the importance of the Public Service in delivering health care to South Australians?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:00): Indeed, I can. Members of the house will be interested to know in the year 2011-12 I am advised that something like 537,000 emergency department presentations were seen in our hospitals in South Australia, 65,000 elective surgical procedures were conducted in our hospitals and something like 1.2 million outpatient services were delivered through our hospitals. That is an enormous amount of activity that is delivered in our state and, of course, we need staff to deliver that. In fact, we have something like 38,000 people working for us in the public health sector in South Australia as of June 2011, and we make no apologies for having taken on plenty more staff since we came to government in 2002.

We have more than 15,500 nurses working in our state. They represent more than four in every 10 staff we employ in—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I beg your pardon?

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The member makes a claim which is not based on the truth. Strangely, she would make a false claim. It will be demonstrated within the month that we have one of the best-performing health care systems in Australia. In fact, as a result of the investment in health in our state, we now have a median wait time in emergency departments in South Australia of 15 minutes in 2011-12, which was down from 29 minutes in 2007-08. That means, of those hundreds of thousands of people who came to our emergency department, half of them were seen within 15 minutes of attending.

The only reason we get these good outcomes is because we have invested in doctors, nurses and allied health workers right across the board. In fact, we have 15,500 nurses in this state. That is 4,500 more nurses employed in our hospitals than when we came to office 10 years ago. We have nearly 3,400 doctors, which is about 1,200 more than when we came to office 10 years ago, and we have more than 3,000 allied health workers in our hospitals, which is 1,150 more. We also, of course, employ dentists, ambulance paramedics and staff, health ancillary staff, and a whole range of people who check on public safety when it comes to water and food right across the board.

We also employ something like 5,000 administrative and clerical staff who work in our hospitals to support the doctors so that when a patient rings up the neurosurgeon does not have to answer the phone: they get someone who has clerical skills to do that who can help make a booking.

But, even if the opposition's plans to cut by 25 per cent were applied to the health portfolio, that would come to 9,500 jobs. If they said, 'We are going to get rid of only administrative jobs,' even if they got rid of all 5,000 admin jobs and doctors and nurses had to do the cleaning, answer the phone and file the reports, even if they did that, there would still be 4,000 extra jobs they would have to cut—

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: This is clearly debate. When the minister says, 'even if' this and 'even if' that, it is clearly debate.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Stuart, sit down. Minister, have you finished your answer?

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I think so, Madam Speaker.