eHEALTH

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): My question is again to the Minister for Health and Ageing.

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr MARSHALL: Can the minister explain why the management of the government's eHealth initiatives has been put out to tender, and whether this is an admission by the government of their own inability to manage the implementation of these programs?

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order, Madam Speaker. You cannot put argument in a question. That is argument. Standing order 97.

The SPEAKER: Yes, you do not need that last part of your question. You have asked your question, I think: has it been put out to tender?

Mr MARSHALL: Yes, but with your leave and that of the house, I would like to explain. The eHealth Program Management Office is supposed to oversee the management and administrative rollout of half a billion dollars worth of eHealth projects, including EPAS. However, almost a year after the system was announced, the government has now invited private tenders for this, with applications closing this Friday.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:28): I am not sure what political point the member is making. The government is prudent about how it manages these systems. We have a range of initiatives in the IT area. EPAS is one of them, we have another system called EPLIS which is being worked through, and ESMI is another; and we have the implementation of Oracle, which is the system in place for procurement and financial management.

All of these systems need to be managed in a coherent way and from time to time we seek outside expertise because we are a department which runs a health system, we are not a department which has a lot of IT expertise, so we do need to hire in expertise. But that is appropriate for government to do that, I would have thought.