Question Time

Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:05): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier stand by his key election promise to fix ramping? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The South Australian Labor government has delivered the 33 worst months of ramping in our state's history.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:06): The Leader of the Opposition asks: are we committed to our election commitments on health? Of course we are.

Mr Pederick: How well is that going?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The member for Hammond interjects, 'How is that going?' Well, if you are in Mount Barker, which services the member for Hammond's electorate quite substantially in places like Murray Bridge, it is going pretty well actually. Because, if you have driven around Mount Barker, what you would see is a brand-new ambulance station, what you would see is a brand-new—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: You might learn something. What you would also see in Mount Barker is a whole brand-new hospital coming alive, a hospital that is only being built because this government was elected at the last election. If you want to know what would be being built as we speak if the other mob were elected at the last election, it would be a basketball stadium. Instead, we are building a whole brand-new hospital over there in Mount Barker, servicing the member for Hammond's electorate.

Let's choose another electorate, shall we? If you are down in the southern suburbs, like where the member for Davenport and the member for Gibson are, amongst other advocates, we are building a massive extension to the Flinders Medical Centre, an in excess of $400 million investment into the Flinders Medical Centre, giving it the capacity it deserves. If you are in the northern suburbs, the Lyell Mac is already a lot bigger today than what it would otherwise be, and we know there are yet more beds coming online for the Lyell Mac this year.

If you are in Modbury in the north-eastern suburbs, we know that Modbury's got more beds coming online this year, along with a cancer centre, amongst other services. In the western suburbs of Adelaide, you are bearing witness to growth at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and better services as a result of that. All of this additional capacity was committed to at the last election. In fact, we wanted to make sure that our commitments of reducing ramping and improving ambulance response times, which of course has been delivered—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Those opposite make a political shriek, but in actual fact if you call 000 today you are more likely to be alive than what would otherwise have been the case four years ago—because you cut the Ambulance Service. We are investing in the Ambulance Service.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left will come to order! The member for Chaffey, the member for Frome and the member for Schubert, you are all on your final warnings.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: When the member for Schubert was trying to work out the social media for the former Premier, we were sitting around formulating policy that has seen the Ambulance Service invested in and grown. Now when people call 000 the Ambulance Service is more likely to roll up on time rather than late, and that is the difference between life and death. Each of the commitments, whether it be around the Ambulance Service or more beds or specific services, we made very explicit commitments, each of them progressively being ticked off one after the other.

Would we like to see better results in terms of ramping? Absolutely. We have been transparent about that. In fact, more than just being a little bit transparent, we have done transparency unlike those opposite even were willing to contemplate. When you were hiding the ambulance ramping figures under the carpet, we committed at the election that we would release them each and every month, and we have honoured that commitment in full. So we're up for the transparency, we're up for the policy debate, we're up for the compare and contrast because it is stark, it is distinct, and the people of South Australia can see it.