SA Ambulance Service

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:29): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier assure the house that all statutory obligations under section 28 of the Coroners Act were fulfilled in relation to the cluster of nine deaths?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:29): I certainly haven't received any advice that that hasn't been the case. In fact, we have just received a report: we have made it very clear and transparent to the people of South Australia. The report was commissioned. We have released that report. I can't see anything in that report which suggests that our statutory obligations have not been followed.

What I do see in this document is a very concerted effort to deal with a spike in adverse incident reporting within the South Australian Ambulance Service, and I would like to commend the leadership within government and within the South Australian Ambulance Service for commissioning this report. I want to commend the paramedics and the ambulance officers who worked with the—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —independent auditor to look at the protocols that were in place, the incidents, and to come up with a plan to address this situation.

As I said, this is not a new situation. I cited previously 2015, when 28 adverse incidents were confirmed in that calendar year—a very significantly heightened number over what occurred last year—but, unlike 2015, this is now a government which doesn't want to hide those adverse findings. In fact, what we want to do is expose them to light. What we want to do is work with people within the health system to make sure that we can minimise any adverse incidents within our health system, and that's precisely what we are doing.

Since coming into government we have had a large number of issues to deal with in regard to the health system, mainly due to the hopeless mismanagement of the Transforming Health project which existed within government. It has put a huge amount of stress and strain on our emergency departments in South Australia. What we are doing, though, is working through all the issues that we inherited in a way which we believe will make sure that we very much develop the very best health system in Australia and do that as quickly as possible.