HOSPITAL FUNDING

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:14): Supplementary, if I can, Mr Speaker?

The SPEAKER: Yes.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Given the Premier's answer that the federal government is putting more money into health services and that the cuts to health in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria were not the responsibility of the federal government, will the Treasurer accept responsibility for the over $900 million worth of cuts outlined in the South Australian health system?

The SPEAKER: That is not a supplementary. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:15): Thank you. And of course we do; we accept the responsibility to make sensible economies in the healthcare system so that we can, at the same time, maintain excellent health care but try to do that in the most economic way possible.

This is not an easy equation. As the present Minister for Health is aware, this is a massive challenge. It is one of the reasons why the former treasurer is now the Minister for Health—because this is one of the great fiscal challenges that we have as a government and he is eminently suited to be able to meet that challenge.

This is going to be a challenge that we will have to meet in collaboration with our union partners that are representatives of the doctors and nurses, who will have to do new things; they will have to do different things in new ways to save money so that we can continue to maintain the excellence that we enjoy in our public hospital system.

Remember what we have in South Australia: within a national healthcare system which is regarded as one of the best in the world, we sit at the top of the tree. This is an incredibly enviable position to be in, but to continue to maintain that—and I must pay credit to the previous minister for health; he has delivered an excellent healthcare system, but it is an expensive healthcare system—we have to find ways of being able to deliver excellence with a greater degree of economy. We believe there are ways that can be achieved in doing that.

In the last budget we did have to back out some of the savings that we sought to make—I think there was about $500 million of savings which were backed out because they proved to be impossible to deliver. There is still, though, a very substantial body of work to be done to deliver the savings that remain in the budget, and it will involve new systems of work.

One of the projects that we are putting in place under the Public Sector Renewal Program is how we get healthy patients out of hospital more quickly. We have to make sure that we are not using up beds in a way which creates expense but is not adding to the wellbeing of patients, and that is one of the things that we are working on. It is difficult work. It is the difficult work of government. It is involving putting up positive propositions to make the South Australian healthcare system both excellent and efficient.

The SPEAKER: I call the Minister for Transport to order for a previous interjection during the Premier's answer. The member for Mitchell.