Question Time

Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:11): My question is to the Premier. Will ramping be fixed by the state election? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: After urging South Australians to vote like their life depends on it and promising to fix it, the state has endured 41 of the worst months of ramping in South Australia's history.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:11): I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question because it provides a bit of a platform to be able to speak to the extensive, indeed exhaustive, work the state government is doing with respect to health. It's interesting; we've had the Leader of the Opposition, on a number of occasions since his tenure as being Leader of the Opposition, ask questions of this nature, as you would reasonably expect. But what you never hear from the opposition—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on both sides will come to order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: What you never hear from the opposition is a critique of any of the policy interventions that we have chosen to make. Let me give you examples. Obviously, the state government, as part of our health policy we took to the election, said that we would open up 300 extra beds as a government, and what we have delivered is 600 new beds to the system. We said that we were going to employ 300 nurses, and we have employed 1,400 extra nurses over and above attrition.

We said that we were going to employ 350 ambulance officers. Not only are we delivering the ambulance officers but we are delivering the stations, the upgrades, the ambulances themselves and all of the things that are required to make a difference on the ground, none more important of which than improving dramatically ambulance response times. In reference to the Leader of the Opposition's question, that is the difference between life and death. What we saw about this time four years ago is people calling 000—with the lights and sirens required in an emergency, that is to say a life-threatening emergency—and then they would wait, and then they would wait, and then they would wait again, and eventually, maybe, the ambulance would get there, but it wasn't likely to be on time.

In fact, from all of the publicly produced data and evidence, it was likely—likely—the ambulance would be late. In fact, you had a one in three chance for an ambulance to roll up on time. Fast-forward to where we are now. If someone calls 000 with the same life-threatening emergency, guess what? Ambulances rolling up on time. We have improved ambulance response times.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader?

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order: standing order 98(a). The question is: will ramping be fixed? The Premier is debating some broader criteria. He is not addressing the question. He needs to address the question.

The SPEAKER: I will keep listening to the Premier, but he's talking about a situation that was in place in this state before the last election and what's in place now and I don't think he has veered off that track.

The Hon. D.G. Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I don’t need your help, member for Unley.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We are going to miss the member for Unley. Those interjections will be sorely missed. The Leader of the Opposition's question went directly to the question of patient safety and the Leader of the Opposition—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond can leave until the end of question time. I am not going to put up with all this noise from either side. We have students in here from around the state and when they are conducting their discussions in their classrooms, they are going to behave a lot better than some of the behaviour that we have seen here in the first four minutes of this question time.

The honourable member for Hammond having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: While it is true that our most recent ramping numbers for the month of October didn't see the best numbers in the last six months, what I would also say is what matters most, and we said this during the election, including when those opposite were critiquing the government's policy—because that was the difference between us and you, of course, we had a health policy at the election.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We had a health policy. You had a policy for a basketball stadium, as the member for Gibson rightly points out. Let's just go to the nub of the issue, when we go to the nub of the issue—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Elder, you are on your final warning. The member for Morphett, you are on your final warning.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: As a result of the effort that we have put into all things related to the Ambulance Service—and, of course, the reason why ramping matters isn't because the patient doesn't get care while they are on the ramp, because we know that of course they do, what matters is the fact that that is an ambulance that is not out on the road responding to another call that comes in.

But where are we at? During the calendar year of 2024-25, 21,271 people received a lights and sirens response on time in comparison to 2021-22. Just listen to that again carefully: that's 21,000 South Australians more who received a response time on time in a lights and sirens emergency from the state's Ambulance Service. So had the policy been maintained, had the last state election delivered a different result, yes, it is true there would be a basketball stadium under construction, but there would be 21,000 people less getting an ambulance on time.

The SPEAKER: Premier, there is a point of order from the deputy leader.

Mr TEAGUE: I am conscious you might tell me I am too slow on my feet. The Premier is refusing to answer the question. He is now proceeding off in a variety of other directions. It is a simple question and requires an answer.

The SPEAKER: That wasn't a question, that was a very longwinded statement. The Premier has addressed the substance of the question and he is also talking about the wider ambulance response situation that we have here and he's comparing it to what it was four years ago. I think it is the sort of answer that South Australians want to hear.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: I will round out with comments not from me or the health minister or any member of the government, but it's worth noting what the Coroner themselves said when they handed down a report that was looking into ramping from a coronial inquest—this is from a court, in effect. The Coroner acknowledged that the inability to get an ambulance to people who need it had drastically reduced. More than that, they said, 'SA Health had made enormous investments in capital projects and redevelopments' and go on to speak to the effort and the value of the policy that the government has to address the challenge at hand. We will continue to do it.