Grievance Debate

SA Health

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:06): Another day goes by and more evidence of the government's mismanagement of Health—this time from the ICAC commissioner himself and this time following a request made by the ICAC commissioner to the government for resources to investigate SA Health. That request was made to the minister last year and that request was completely rejected by this government.

The ICAC commissioner said that he was aware of significant maladministration, misconduct and potential corruption and that he needed $2 million over two years to conduct a proper inquiry into this matter. What did this government say? They told him no. They told him, 'We will not provide you the resources to do that.' Now what has happened is that the ICAC commissioner has delivered a preliminary report, based on the information that was available to him, that outlines some very serious revelations about what is going on in SA Health.

It talks about conflict of interest issues, it talks about bullying and harassment, it talks about contracting and procurement issues and it talks about the rights of private practice arrangements and benefit schemes underway in SA Health and their management. These are very serious issues. These are serious questions that have been raised. You would think that the government, now having had access to this report, would say, 'Well, we think this should actually be properly looked into and we should properly now have a proper ICAC inquiry. We were wrong before.'

But, no, not this government. They are continuing to deny the ICAC commissioner the resources he has requested to investigate our largest public sector agency that costs the state $6.6 billion a year. Over two years, that is $13,000 million that SA Health uses, but they are refusing $2 million over two years to properly investigate the issues. Their response now is, 'We are going to have a committee of public servants to investigate the issues.' Well, what a weak response. It is such a weak response. It is a complete joke. It is dismissing these issues.

There is no way that this is going to get to the bottom of these issues. Getting the Premier's department, treasury department and health department boffins in a room is not going to address the issues that are in this report, so the question is: why does the government not want to properly get to the bottom of these issues? Why do they not want to properly investigate the issues that Bruce Lander has pointed to here? I do not think that there would be a South Australian out there who would think that the ICAC commissioner should not have every resource he needs to properly get to the bottom of these issues.

Then today, in question time, more dismissive attitude to this, more questions as to exactly what is going on and their management of this, and the minister telling the other place, 'I haven't finished reading the report yet.' This is the minister in charge of this $6.6 billion portfolio, that has just been slammed by the ICAC commissioner, saying he has not finished reading the report. The Attorney-General's response to that is, 'Who knows, really? It's a bit unclear whether or not the report was provided to the minister before it was tabled in the parliament.'

I think it is a bit extraordinary that, if this report had not been provided to Health before 11am when the Speaker tabled it, the government would have had a response to that report ready to go for an 11.45 press conference and an 11.15 briefing of public sector unions. How would they have known what they were responding to if they had not read it before then? Was the Attorney-General wrong in saying that it had not been provided, or was it provided and the minister just had not got around to reading it over the past four days? This is not Ulysses: this is 64 pages. If you were the minister and you were getting slammed by the ICAC commissioner, you think you would find time in four days to read a 64-page report. I have almost finished it and we have only had it for a couple of hours.

This is just more evidence of the attitude of this government. We had the parading earlier today of the minister with almost all the heads of the local hospital networks. Who was missing? The Chief Executive of SA Health was missing. The person who is paid $561,000 a year to administer this portfolio, Dr Chris McGowan, was missing and what was the Premier's response to that? 'Oh, he might have had some other pressing business to attend to.'

What is more pressing than dealing with the ICAC commissioner's report for the Chief Executive of SA Health, than being out there to talk about it and to answer questions about the administration and his responsibilities under the Health Care Act? This is a shocking betrayal of trust in their management of this issue. I think all South Australians will be ashamed that we do not have the ICAC getting the resources they need. It is yet another example of this government failing when it comes to the health care of this state.

Time expired.