Nurses and Midwives

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:21): My question is to the Premier. How does the Premier respond to Molly, a third-year nursing student at UniSA? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: Molly said this week that her sister is a midwife and she is looking interstate in places like Victoria for better opportunities and more incentives.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:21): I would say to Molly: under this government we have a job for you. Under this government we are employing more nurses and midwives than ever before. Under this government—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my right and members on my left will come to order.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —we have employed over 1,400 extra nurses and midwives into this state above attrition, full-time equivalent. If you are looking at the actual headcount, it is far in excess of that. We are bringing in huge numbers of graduate nurses. Our graduate nurse intake is full. We are able to recruit the graduate nurses that we want to into our program.

The Leader of the Opposition is out spraying the cash. He is out in this massive cash splash which he says has cost $170 million this week—according to our sums, it is over $370 million this week—and he hasn't said where the money is coming from.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett will leave until the end of question time.

The honourable member for Morphett having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: You are splashing the cash, you are supposedly going to cut the debt and you are cutting state revenue all at the same time. It is this magic pudding economics of the Leader of the Opposition. I know we are all counting down the days until the member for Flinders is going to have to get up and present the costings—whack the proverbial on the table—and we are all going to scour through it and see how the sums add up and how the magic pudding has been concocted. He looks a little stressed at what he is going to have to do.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer and the Minister for Human Services will come to order.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: He is increasing spending, now there is a cash splash, he is cutting debt and he is cutting taxes. Easy, sure. If there is anybody who can pull that off—why didn't we think of that? The member for Flinders has it all sorted. And I know our friends up in the media are looking forward to that press conference when this is all going to be revealed, how this is all going to unfold in great detail.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Imagine the sweat.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Well, every day the Leader of the Opposition is out there with his cash splash, fixing problems like recruiting graduate nurses where we are already fully subscribed. The Treasurer here has got the calculator out and we are adding that up, and we will be holding the member for Flinders and the Leader of the Opposition to account—

The Hon. P.B. Malinauskas: And the deputy leader.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and the deputy leader and the shadow health minister—for their Oprah Winfrey style everybody-gets-something approach to managing the state's finances. We are very much looking forward to that.

The Hon. P.B. Malinauskas: Wait until Batty gets started.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the leader: Premier, you are warned; Treasurer, you are on your final warning; and there are a couple others getting very close to their final warnings—it was very rowdy. The Leader of the Opposition.