Global Liveability Index

Ms O'HANLON (Dunstan) (14:27): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier inform the house about any recent international reports regarding Adelaide?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:27): I thank the member for Dunstan for her question. Last night, as is annually the case, the Economist Intelligence Unit released its most liveable city rankings for cities around the world, and for a sustained period we have seen Adelaide really outperform the world with respect to our liveability rankings, and it is something to be proud of. It improved yet again last night—we are going back into the top 10, thankfully.

I just thought it was interesting, and I have looked at this previously and I had a chance to do it again last night, to see what actually sits behind those scores? We look at the ranking and it's often reflected upon how lucky we are and how we outperform not just the rest of the nation in many respects but also the rest of the world, but what actually sits behind those statistics? There's a range of different measures that they look at. They look at stability, cultural environment, education, health care and infrastructure. I thought this is not a partisan point, this is just a genuine observation around how we are going. Adelaide, interestingly, on both health care and then separately for education—they rank you and they give you an index out of 100. On both health care and education in a global context, Adelaide ranked at 100 points. We got 100 points.

I know, as we all know, that the health system as we have been exploring today is not perfect and there is always more we can do, as is the case with education. But I tell you what: if you looked at every single city around the world and you accept this as a measure of success or otherwise, if you could pick any city around the world and you said, 'Right, I'm going to get sick, I'm going to pick one,' then where you would choose is Adelaide if you look at these others.

It is the opposition's job to point to failure, and we accept that. That is part of our Westminster system of government. But it is also not unreasonable, every now and then, to reflect on just how fortunate we are to have literally tens of thousands of people working within our health system—in fact, I think over 50,000 now—in the state of South Australia who have been able to deliver us such good health care that there are few other places around the world that you would rather be to be able to get access to that care, and similarly with the thousands upon thousands of people who work within our education system, who have delivered the same result with respect to education.

We look at these numbers as an incentive to keep the effort up and to not be complacent. There are a number of cities around the world, including in First World countries, that have seen their rankings go backwards. You cannot be complacent; you have to continue to invest and renew your effort.

But, my word, this is an incredibly special city to live in. That is not a function of this government or our predecessor or the one before that; it is a function of sustained effort, for a long time now, to actually create a highly multicultural, open society that is peaceful and stable, as is reflected by this report, and that delivers every citizen access to high-quality services regardless of their economic circumstances. That is something to be proud of and something to keep dedicating ourselves towards.