HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (14:59): My question is, again, to the Minister for Health. How is it that, according to the Auditor-General, under the minister's watch the Department for Health and Ageing's actual full-time equivalent staffing are 431 above cap set by Treasury, and what action, if any, does he plan to take to conform with the Treasurer's direction?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:59): I thank the member for that question. That is a reasonable question, and I thank him for it. Just to put that in perspective, the health department employs 30,000 plus people and we have 38,000 or so headcounts, so the number, which is above cap, is about 1 per cent or 1.5 per cent, or thereabouts, but it is something that we are dealing with.

Part of the issue has been the multisited arrangements that have been in place in health which we are bringing together in a centralised system. The Auditor-General talks about the Oracle system, for example, that will assist us manage all those issues. There is other work that the Minister for Finance is working on with me in relation to that which will be helpful. We have also put in place a series of protocols where approvals have to be given for the taking on of new staff.

One of the issues, of course, is managing temporary staff, though that is not part of the headcount issue, but that is another issue. If we push down on overtime and temporary staff, then that inevitably means that more full-time staff get employed; and, if we push down on that we get more of the other, so it is trying to balance all those things out better. Better IT systems and better protocols in place—both of which we are working on—we hope will improve the circumstances.