Health Review

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:39): I rise to address two issues today, one being in relation to the ongoing controversy on the issue of Transforming Health. The particular issue I address briefly is the claim I have seen repeated, and repeated again in the House of Assembly yesterday in question time when the Minister for Health, when challenged about the potential savings of some of the issues in relation to Transforming Health, said:

We have not modelled savings because this process isn't about savings.

That is absolute rubbish. The health department, SA Health, has come before the Budget and Finance Committee on a number of occasions over recent years. They have acknowledged that they are facing, as a result of state government cuts prior to the recent decisions in relation to federal government funding, state government cuts of many hundreds of millions of dollars over the forward estimates period, and they have indicated that they were looking, prior to Transforming Health, at a range of controversial areas in terms of budget savings.

It is a nonsense, it is rubbish, it is untrue for any member, in particular the Minister for Health, to say in a house of parliament that this issue is not about generating budget savings. I guess, ultimately, it is an issue for the House of Assembly in terms of privilege and in terms of misleading the house of parliament, but there is no doubt that there are very many documents, I am sure, available both within Treasury and within SA Health that would be proof positive that Transforming Health is about generating budget savings, is about meeting budget savings targets, and that calculations are available within SA Health and within the Department of Treasury and Finance which have already looked at what savings might be generated.

It is then an easy segue for me to move to just another grotesque example of government waste within the Public Service, and that was the recent decision by Premier Weatherill to pay his own personally appointed and chosen chief executive, Mr Kym Winter-Dewhirst, a salary increase of $125,000 for the job that he has just been given. This is a job that has been reduced in size, because a number of key parts of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet have been removed: Arts SA has been removed, SafeWork SA has been removed and Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation has been removed and transferred to other departments. I am advised that there are ongoing discussions in relation to corporate services and other shared services with Treasury that might at some stage also be removed.

So, we actually have a department, an agency, a CEO, responsible for a smaller group of not only employees but responsibilities, and for some unjustifiable reason Premier Weatherill decides that he is worth $125,000 a year more than the former CEO, Jim Hallion who, as I understand it, is wandering around somewhere, whether on a full-time or part-time contract, still being paid because he has almost 18 months of his contract still to serve with the government.

That is what makes people angry. You have this grotesque waste of money at a time when the Repat hospital is being closed and emergency departments are being closed. You have the position of a former Labor Party staffer, Mr Kym Winter-Dewhirst. I have no problem in relation to, ultimately, a premier choosing his or her own chief executive, but that chief executive then executed eight, as we understand it, rather than 11 senior executives, without notice, without warning, on one particular morning, they being told that they were no longer wanted.

In one case an executive, who was only one year through a five-year contract, will have to be paid out and was treated without any dignity, as I have said before. What is appalling public servants is twofold: in doing that, as I indicated in the last matter of importance, people like Adele Young, who is a Labor Party honcho from the Northern Territory, adept in running campaigns, are being given key positions within the department and other former Labor staffers like Mr Flanagan and Mr Morris are being given positions, whilst these long-serving, loyal public servants are executed.