Health Services

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:53): My question is again to the minister representing the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm whether the more than 880 job cuts within SA Health include job cuts in SA Pathology and SA imaging to be privatised, or will that privatisation result in even more job cuts?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:53): What the Minister for Health has said, and our budget has said, is that we will look at SA Pathology, and where services can't be delivered, or shouldn't be delivered or could be done cheaper—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —we will look at all of that. We have said that having some of those services delivered by private organisations, if it's sensible, if it's cost effective, if the service will be just as good, that's the sort of thing that we might look at. It's not actually a sweeping privatisation of SA Pathology in the way the member for Kaurna would have this chamber believe. It's not that at all. The intention, as I have said several times this week in this chamber, is to investigate where it might be sensible to make a change. I don't know how much change that would entail. I can assure you the Minister for Health doesn't know how much change that might entail either because he hasn't started that review yet.

I can tell you also, member for Kaurna, that we are incredibly focused on people and their jobs and their employment. We know that every single person is important. We want more and more people to be employed in South Australia, but we want efficient, positive service delivery—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —and we will look into where we need to make changes and, if we need to make changes at the time, we will share that information.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Transport is called to order, as is the member for Reynell. The member for Kaurna.