Health Safe Access Zones

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:42): A supplementary question: the New South Wales bill is actually an amendment to the Public Health Act, so will the minister provide comment on the safety of the employees of the health system in this state?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:42): In relation to that legislation, the legislation itself is committed to the honourable Leader of the Government in this place. In terms of my own responsibilities, I will certainly do everything to make sure that public health officers going about their duty are not threatened or impeded. I am not aware of any case of that happening in Australia.

The Hon. T.A. Franks: In the news.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I should say, in South Australia. Certainly since I have been minister, and including since I have been shadow minister, nobody has raised their concerns that they have been threatened or impeded as a health worker, but I am not denying that it doesn't happen. What I do understand is that there have been some, to be frank, horrific examples of violence against people, particularly in the United States, in the context of abortion clinics. I would urge all South Australians to live within the law.

These abortion clinics, some of them publicly funded, are operating within the law. If people want to change the law, they should advocate for that; they shouldn't take the law into their own hands.