Health System

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): My question is to the Minister for Health. Has the—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Is cocaine dangerous?

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: I will start my question again. I think the member for West Torrens is talking to himself again. My question is to the Minister for Health. Has the $956 million SA Health budget blowout fixed ramping?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:23): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the opportunity he has given us to talk about our record expenditure in the health system here in South Australia, because this is a government which is prioritising investing in health, prioritising hiring more doctors and nurses—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and prioritising opening more hospital beds for patients who need them. That stands in stark contrast to when those opposite were in government. What did they do? They brought in corporate liquidators KordaMentha—fly-in fly-out every week, paid a gazillion dollars through taxpayers—who were put in charge of actually running hospitals, putting these consultants in charge of running hospitals, and then they came up with plans for cuts, cuts and more cuts. They made redundancies of frontline nurses in the hundreds during a global pandemic. All around the world, governments were hiring more doctors and nurses. Here, we had a Liberal government in power that was making cuts that were making nurses redundant on the frontline. We are not pursuing that policy. We have banned the redundancy of frontline doctors and nurses—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and we are hiring more doctors and nurses. So two out of three dollars that are spent in Health go to our staff, frontline people working day in, day out to provide health care for the people of South Australia. If the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting his proposal for the health system is cutting funding, is reducing expenditure, then he should outline—

The Hon. D.G. Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley will come to order.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —which doctors are going to be cut, which nurses are going to be cut, which beds are going to be closed, because we have seen this story before in South Australia. We are turning this around, we are opening additional capacity in our healthcare system to make sure that patients can get the care that they need, and if we return to the past, if we return to the cuts, the sacking of frontline nurses, that is going to be detrimental to patients who need that care. So we make no apologies for the fact that we are investing more. We have an ambitious agenda: we are prioritising the healthcare system; we are building a bigger healthcare system with more capacity; we are opening more beds, not closing them; and we are hiring more nurses and doctors not making them redundant.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley, the member for Chaffey, the member for Hammond and the member for Colton are on final warnings. It is just too rowdy in here today. I don't think the Glenunga International High School students will be very impressed.