House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Nurses and Midwives Nurses and Midwives The Hon. V.A. TARZIA House of Assembly Hartley Nurses and Midwives The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): Thank you for your protection, sir. My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier commit to a nurses and midwives scholarship program to attract more nurses and midwives to South Australia and, if not, why not? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain. Leave granted. The Hon. V.A. TARZIA House of Assembly Hartley The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: Our party has announced that we will grow the next generation of nurses and midwives with a recruitment scholarship program as part of our plan to build a better health system. Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: The interjections and the noise have started before the minister has even had the call. Can we please just quieten it down on my right? The Minister for Health. The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:26): On this side of the house, we love our nurses and midwives here in South Australia, and that's why we have been employing so many more of them—over 1,400. We have recruited above attrition, full-time equivalent, working as part of our health services and that stands in stark opposition to the situation we inherited. What was the situation we inherited? The government had a program of targeted redundancies for nurses: 228 nurses and midwives made redundant under the government where the Leader of the Opposition sat around the cabinet table—the government where the shadow health minister was the chief spin doctor for the Premier—and they made 228 nurse jobs in this state redundant during the midst of a global pandemic. So we will not be taking lectures from the Leader of the Opposition, who made nurses redundant, on how to grow our nursing workforce when we have been recruiting extra nurses. We value our nurses and midwives in this state, we have legislated for nurse-to-patient ratios for the first time in this state, and we will continue to do so. We will continue to see those nurse recruitment numbers rise, as opposed to the proposition where we had a government previously that was making them redundant, and now an opposition that is proposing a massive unfunded cash splash without even saying that this would recruit one extra nurse. There wouldn't even be one extra nursing job under what they are proposing. We will keep recruiting extra nurses as we have done so over the past 3½ years.