Nurse Redundancies

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:21): My question is to the Premier. Exactly how many nursing positions have been made redundant in our public hospitals over the past three years?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:21): I don't have the specific details of the targeted voluntary separation packages that have been offered, but we do know that in total we have more nurses in the system now than we had when we came to government. It's an important reinvestment into the health service in South Australia. Those opposite of course left the health system in South Australia in a perilous state. Since then, we have been providing more doctors, more nurses, more paramedics, more facilities and, indeed, a much greater budget for SA Health than we inherited from those opposite.

While the Leader of the Opposition loves to talk about his footy career, he hardly ever tells us about his career as the health minister in South Australia and how he was downgrading and closing hospitals in South Australia.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Lots of talk about playing for the Adelaide University Football Club, not much talk about the job that he was doing immediately before the last election—downgrading those services. Of course, what we have done in total since then is more doctors, more nurses, more paramedics, more beds, and more beds to come, with a massive investment in the infrastructure—over a billion dollars of work—underway at the moment. In addition to that, another $2 billion has gone into the overall health budget, and that was necessary.

Because we have been able to deal with the very significant underinvestment made by those opposite, that's one of the reasons why we have had a successful approach to dealing with the global pandemic. We know that this has confounded many other jurisdictions around the country and around the world where they have been on the back foot but, because we as a government have very significantly invested in the deficit that we inherited from those opposite in terms of health services in South Australia, we have been in a much better position.

Of course, we have been informed by clinicians and we have been informed by the general public—the consumers within the health service—to create the health system that we need for the future. Whilst those opposite can whinge and whine and carp and complain, I would just say that this is a work in progress. At the moment, we do have a very significant increase in demand. Imagine where we would be if we had kept the same arrangements that we had from those opposite: underinvesting in facilities, underinvesting in our personnel in South Australia and of course we would be without the fantastic facility at the Repat—

Ms Cook interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hurtle Vale!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —which is taking the pressure off the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network and, ultimately, the other networks in South Australia as well.

I am looking forward to the next couple of months as we expand the capacity overall for our emergency departments and our health services in South Australia. This is going to address the problems that we inherited from those opposite. The Flinders Medical Centre is the busiest emergency department in the state, and when it is busy it puts undue pressure on the Central Adelaide Local Health Network, which is, of course, the Royal Adelaide Hospital and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. If we can fix, with a massive expansion, the capacity within the Flinders Medical Centre emergency department, then we will go a long way to rebalancing that entire system.

It is a pity that those opposite didn't look at this as an entire system when they were in place. It is a pity that those opposite—who are shaking their heads in frustration at the moment—were not, when they were in government, complaining to the Leader of the Opposition about the closure of the Repat or the downgrading of the Noarlunga Hospital or the downgrading of the Modbury Hospital, the downgrading of our health system in general across South Australia.

They weren't, so it is a bit rich for them to come in here now and complain while we are investing money in creating an expanded emergency department capacity in South Australia and fixing the mess that we inherited.