KordaMentha

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:39): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Does the minister agree that KordaMentha is one of the most respected of organisations and that it has done an amazing job saving the people of Whyalla and South Australia?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:40): The honourable member raises a very interesting point. Before 17 March the Labor Party regarded KordaMentha as a team that helped save Whyalla—and indeed it was part of that very important journey—yet on the other side of the election the Labor Party seems to regard KordaMentha as an object of ridicule. Some of the low-rent attacks made were pathetic.

You have to ask: why does the Labor Party hate KordaMentha? Does the Labor Party hate KordaMentha because it is calling out the abusive use of agency staff, where up to 25 per cent of nurses in a ward could be agency staff? Does the Labor Party actually hate public sector nurses so much that it wants to protect the agency nurses in our hospitals, or could it be that the Labor Party hates KordaMentha because under its watch billing was so appalling that there were 8,000 separations that had not been billed?

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hunter, restrain yourself.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Who is going to benefit from that? The commonwealth is, the private health insurance industry is going to benefit from that, so I don't really know why the Labor Party hates KordaMentha so much. I hate to think that it is standing up for private sector nurses, the commonwealth government and the private health insurance industry funds, but the facts do not disagree with that presumption.