Medicare Rebate Scheme

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:20): My question is to the Minister for Recreation and Sport. How will the federal government's proposed changes to the Medicare rebate scheme impact young children who are injured playing sport? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: Medicare rebates for hip, shoulder and hand surgeries for injuries occurring to young sportspeople are being removed from 1 July. The cost must now be borne solely by the person who is injured, and with public hospital waiting times for orthopaedics at more than five years and the cost for private hospital cover escalating, this will see an injured sportsperson face a dilemma of more time on the sidelines, continuing pain, or paying for the additional cost of surgery.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (15:21): I thank the member for her question. Whilst I can't speak for the federal government, what I can talk about is what we actually are doing in sport. We are doing an incredible amount especially for community sport. We have put some $390 million into sport since coming into government, more investment in grassroots sports than sport has ever seen before.

Ms BEDFORD: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will resume his seat. The member for Florey on a point of order.

Ms BEDFORD: The question was about sports injury, and if the minister has no information for the house, it would just be better if he sat down.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right and members on my left! The minister has only just commenced his answer.

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Light is called to order. The minister has just commenced his answer so, in a sense, I am prepared to uphold the point of order insofar as it's a point of order as to relevance. The minister will direct his answer to the question. The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Again, I thank the member for the question. I was going to give a short answer, but I can give a longer answer now. I do notice that they scoff over there, yet whenever money goes into their local communities they are very happy and very grateful, so the clubs are excited. But to get back to the question before I'm rudely interrupted, in particular by the member for Reynell—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will resume his seat for a moment. The member for Hurtle Vale is called to order. The member for Florey rises on a point of order.

Ms BEDFORD: Sir, it is relevance. There is no relevance to injuries and what he's supplying in sport elsewhere. It would be better for him just to sit down so we can get to the budget.

The SPEAKER: Order! I have already ruled on the member for Florey's point of order. I have upheld it in respect of it being a point of order as to relevance. I have given the minister the opportunity to address his answer to the question. The minister had slightly more than a nanosecond in which to continue before the point of order was repeated. I will give the minister an opportunity to answer the question. The minister will direct his answer to the question. The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you, sir. If I can finish my answer before I'm rudely interrupted, specifically by the member for Reynell, I do want to point out that we actually have increased our sports vouchers and this actually leads to expansion into swimming. Swimming is a sport which of course is very therapeutic and very good for rehab and recovery. This is a really great initiative, I think, that we have taken that program that was only $50 under the previous government and we have actually moved it to $100.

I don't want to be a spoiler for the member for Lee, but this was announced a couple of weeks ago. He probably didn't notice. We have actually expanded it out to year 9, so we are actually putting more money back into the pockets of the people of South Australia. What we did also point out was that $20 million has already gone back into the pockets of the people of South Australia and that will expand, and the Treasurer will outline that further when he comes into this house.

But adding sports like dance and swimming into this program actually does very much help people to have a bigger choice of sports they want to play. So if they don't want to play a contact sport—

Ms Bedford interjecting:

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: If they don't want to play a contact sport, they can choose to do something that is less—

The SPEAKER: The member for Florey is called to order.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —physically demanding as far as a potential injury is concerned. Having said that, we know that people can fall over walking down the street as well. We want to keep people active, we want to keep people doing healthy sports, we want to keep people running, we want to keep them exercising—heaven forbid, we want to keep them doing calisthenics as well—because we know how beneficial that is for their health and wellbeing.

Again, I can talk ad nauseam about the $390 million we put into sport and how beneficial this is for the people of South Australia, not only from a physical fitness point of view but from a mental fitness point of view. We know as far as wellbeing is concerned, this is a really great uplift. I can turn to the Minister for Environment and the work he has done with the reservoirs, which fits under our Game On strategy here through the Office for Rec and Sport.

The departments are working incredibly closely again to get people out, to get them in nature, to get them walking, to get them riding, to get them to do things that are physically beneficial for them and make them fit and healthy. We will continue to do that, but I won't speak for the federal government.