Hospital Beds

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:47): My question is to the Premier. Premier, is there any clinician at all in South Australia who has the power to reopen the beds that your government has closed?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:48): I don't think that there's a single person that has authority to do that—a single clinician that you want me to point to this afternoon. These issues are taken by the department, by the people that are put in charge. Lesley Dwyer runs the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. She has been employed since we came to government to fix up the mess that we inherited, and I think we all appreciate just how significant that mess was.

Of course, we didn't find out before the election: we only found out after the election. The full magnitude of the problems on that site were not disclosed to the people of South Australia before the election. On coming to government, it was very, very clear that we were heading towards an annualised cost overrun in the Central Adelaide Local Health Network of more than $300 million per year—more than $5 million per day. That's why it was important for us to act swiftly, and we did.

We've appointed a new chief executive for the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. We've put a new board in place for the largest of the LHNs, as we have for all LHNs in South Australia. There's a new governance arrangement, and we have every confidence that we will deliver a much better outcome at a much more affordable price for the people of South Australia.

I emphasise that on coming to government the budget that had been put in place for health in this state was completely and utterly inadequate. To continue with Labor's previous budget for this area would have put the people of South Australia in danger, and that's why we acted swiftly. We put more than $1 billion back in, but it's not just money; it's also about leadership and governance, and it's also about putting the right systems in place. Those are underway. I'm very confident that they will yield results, and I will certainly not be taking any advice from those opposite.