Transforming Health

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): It seems like a tough regime today, sir. Supplementary to the Premier: given that the Premier has just explained to the house that, in fact, there is an overwhelming majority of clinicians in favour of this, can he perhaps give a list to this house of the overwhelming majority of professional associations which are supporting Transforming Health?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:20): At all stages of this process, it has been driven by clinicians, from the very first. Of course, there are going to be a minority of clinicians who, for whatever reason, do not want change. It might be that they are comfortable. It might be because their rights of private practice work to their advantage working at a particular location and they do not want to change locations. There may be any number of reasons why individual clinicians may not like change.

I would be very, very surprised, if we had any change, particularly on the scale which we are undertaking, and there was unanimity of opinion on the changes. Of course, there are going to be different opinions and, of course, we will always listen to clinicians when they have real concerns about quality and safety issues with regard to what we are putting in place.

We have gone through a very long process. We have been talking about these changes for the last couple of years. There is nothing new in the reforms that we are putting up. They have been talked about for two years. In fact, really, their genesis comes from the Generational Health Review that was done by Dr John Menadue when this government first came to office. There is nothing particularly—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Well, there happens to be a new hospital being built down the road. There happens to be hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent on upgrading every single metropolitan hospital and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on upgrading our country hospitals. There is one thing the opposition cannot accuse us of and that is sitting idle when it comes to health reform, because both my predecessors, starting with Lea Stevens, worked very hard to improve our health system in the face of opposition from the Liberal Party every step of the way—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Every time this government has taken concrete steps to improve our health system, the opposition has opposed it.

The SPEAKER: The opposition's position on health is irrelevant to the answer. Would the minister provide the house with information?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I'm sorry, sir, I was being sorely provoked by the opposition, and I apologise to the house. But nonetheless, we have been engaged in a long reform process. This is only the latest development. We cannot sit idle, and the overwhelming majority of clinicians who work in our health system cannot sit idle, given what we know and given that, when you compare data in the South Australian health system and benchmark it with peer hospitals interstate and the Australian Health Roundtable data, there are 500 more people dying in South Australian hospitals than should be the case.

In that knowledge, I cannot, in conscience as health minister, allow that to continue without doing everything I can possibly do to improve it. These changes will see definite improvements to patient care, and I am yet to see anything from anyone, including the opposition, suggesting an alternative.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is warned for the first and second time. Leader.