Nurses and Midwives

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:40): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Will the government commit to retention incentives to keep experienced nurses and midwives in our health system? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: The Liberal opposition has announced that we will introduce a retention incentive to keep experienced nurses and midwives in our health system, and that's something which has been unilaterally backed by the ANMF.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:41): I am developing a degree of concern about a basic understanding of arithmetic from those opposite. The shadow—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Elder and the member for Flinders! The member for Flinders, I think, is already on your final warning; you definitely are now. I am not chucking you out just yet, but you're close.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The shadow treasurer, the member for Flinders, obviously has access to a different type of calculator or Excel spreadsheet. He has his own brand spanking new formula that every single politician, every single accountant in human history has never been able to master. He's got a unique formula that says you can cut revenue, increase spending and reduce debt. No-one's ever been able to do it before, but you can. You can, and we can't wait to see how that all adds up. The countdown clock—I've been on the eighth floor—the countdown clock is there counting down the days for your costings release.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Flinders, take a rest for 10 minutes, okay. That was a lot.

The honourable member for Flinders having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: So there's the arithmetic there. And then we've got the shadow health minister asking questions about retainment of nursing staff in the state of South Australia. If you have grown the number of staff that you have employed by 1,460 over and above attrition, clearly you are recruiting more than you're losing—you are recruiting more than you are losing. The second thing is this: I, like the health minister himself, along with a range of others, including the Minister for Human Services, a former nurse herself, when we go out there and speak to nurses about what matters to them in order to be able to retain their ongoing service to the state as a nurse, what they want to see is an expanding health system that acknowledges the fact that we've got a growing and ageing population.

They don't want a government putting their heads in the sand, pretending that patients one day are going to stop coming into the system or that somehow we have found a new youth elixir that means that people are not going to get sick when they become older. They want a government that is actually investing in the capacity of the system. More beds, more nurses, more doctors, more allied health staff, more ambulance officers—they want to see those investments take place.

Your strategy is, well, let's try and do more for the people who we have already. We have to actually do something for the people we have already by ensuring they are working in a system that acknowledges the growing level of demand that we have in society, and to do anything else is a path to failure.

You have to invest in capacity, because we do have a growing population and we do have an ageing population and at some point during the course of their life journey they will become ill, which means they will need to have access to a bed that is serviced by an employee. That is what we are committed to and it stands in stark contrast to your cash splash, which you haven't explained how you are going to pay for, while at the same time reducing the revenue base to the tune of a third by the state. This is a serious issue. It deserves a serious government with a serious policy and the capacity to be able to deliver it.