Ministerial Responsibility

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister advise if he fully understands his duties as minister. In particular, will the minister advise:

1. Has he read and understood all of his incoming government briefs?

2. Has he received any further advice beyond the incoming government briefs and if he fully understood that advice?

3. Does he fully understand his role as minister and his legislative powers and roles under legislation attributed to him?

4. Has he received any briefings on building and/or operating a high dependency unit at Modbury Hospital and will he outline the content of such briefings for the benefit of the chamber?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:36): I have received a set of incoming briefs and numerous briefs since then. I continue to read and digest them and seek further briefs from agencies.

In relation to the high dependency unit, which is about the only specific item the minister referred to, not only have I read the incoming government brief but I have actually visited the Modbury Hospital and met with three local members—all of those who stood on a platform of reinstating the Modbury Hospital high dependency unit.

I remind the honourable member that one of those was a former member of the Weatherill Labor government, the honourable member for Florey, Frances Bedford. She was a former Labor member and one of the fundamental issues where she differed with the former Labor government was whether or not the people of the north deserved to have fair critical care. The other two members present were the member for Newland and the member for King, both Liberal members, both elected on a clear platform of reinstating a high dependency unit at Modbury Hospital.

Let's be clear what the Labor Party is standing up for when it criticises the reinstatement of critical care services at Modbury. Under Transforming Health, approximately half of the critical care beds available to northern hospitals were closed. If the people of the north believe that the Labor Party is standing up for them—when they believe that, in spite of the growth of that region, they can cope with half as many critical care beds—I would love to see a Labor member try to explain that.

One of the reasons why the Labor Party was so hard to find on the ground during that campaign, in my view, was because they couldn't even run that lie. The fact of the matter is that we made a clear commitment to the people of the north-east and we will continue to work through the issues to make sure that a high dependency unit is available to not only support care for the people of the north-east in relation to the current range of services but also so that we can look for opportunities to strengthen moderate to complex surgery on that site which can only be delivered with the provision of critical care services.

We are committed to a Modbury Hospital high dependency unit. We are continuing to work through with the clinicians about the service mix that will undergird that, and we look forward to delivering that and a whole raft of promises that the people of South Australia fully endorsed at the last election.