Question Time

SA Health, ICAC Report

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:40): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier satisfied himself that none of the members of the cross-agency task force have ICAC complaints made against them?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:40): I have absolute faith in my chief executive, Jim McDowell, to—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth can leave for the remainder of question time under 137A.

The honourable member for Elizabeth having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I have every confidence in my chief executive, Jim McDowell, to set up an interagency task force to look at this issue. It is a very important issue. We look forward to receiving the advice from the interagency task force, which should be received by the end of this year. The important issue is that we have a plan to address each and every one of the issues that has been put forward by the commissioner.

I do remind this house, though, that these are issues which have sat around for a very long period of time. It is not correct to suggest that we haven't been working on each and every one of these issues since we came to government, but we do appreciate the work of the commissioner to bring it together into a report. This gives us an opportunity to go through, to provide our cure report, to work through it, to implement it and to monitor it over time.

I would remind this house that, on coming to government, we found such a mess within the Central Adelaide Local Health Network that we appointed KordaMentha to take a look at the issues that were there. This has been very well publicised, some of the atrocities that they found that were presided over by the previous government. In particular, I remind the house of the many tens of millions of dollars worth of activity that had occurred within the Royal Adelaide Hospital that had never actually been sent to the commonwealth for payment. This is absolutely outrageous.

This was the level of incompetence that was presided over by the previous administration. Of course, we all know who the minister for health was under the previous Labor government—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order, Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —it was none other than the Leader of the Opposition.

The SPEAKER: Premier, be seated for one moment, please.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It is clearly debate, sir.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. I do believe that the question was quite broad. I have allowed the Premier some opportunity to provide some relevant preamble, but I will ensure that he doesn't deviate from the substance of the question. The Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The question was about the establishment of the interagency task force and the work that they will be doing to fix up the issues that were addressed by the commissioner in his report. I stated at the outset—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that I have every confidence that Mr Jim McDowell will chair that well. He will select the people onto that committee well and they will provide that advice to the government. But I make the point that we have been working on our cure plan for the problems that we have found within SA Health since the day we came to government. I have provided this house with an example of the failure of SA Health to in fact invoice the federal government for activity that they had done. This is work that has been identified since we came to government, hitherto swept under the carpet, by KordaMentha and a rectification plan has been put in place.

There is only one party in this parliament that was actually violently opposed to the appointment of KordaMentha to clean up their mess, and that was the Australian Labor Party. They hated the fact that we were getting on and cleaning up their mess, but the people of South Australia want—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. A. Piccolo: The clinicians really like it, too. They really like it, the clinicians.

The SPEAKER: Member for Light!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —a better health system than they had delivered under the previous government. It's not enough just to open bright, shiny new hospitals. We want better services in our hospitals in South Australia, and that is evidenced by the fact that today we have been announcing more services at the Flinders Medical Centre. In fact, this year my understanding is that there have been 70 new beds opened in South Australia and there will be more to come on the Repat site and at Flinders Medical Centre next year.

We want better services for the people of South Australia. This is our number one focus and this will be the work that the interagency task force will be doing. They will be providing the government with that advice before the end of the year and we will take that on board. We won't be sitting on it. It won't be going onto a shelf and gathering dust. What we will be doing is referring to it on a continuous basis to make sure that we can fix up these problems, many of which have sat around for years and years.