SA Ambulance Service

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:44): Supplementary arising from the original answer: is the minister telling the chamber that he was first informed in December 2018 that there was a problem serious enough that there would be an independent investigation and report and he decided it was not something he would tell the South Australian public?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:45): This question suggests that there is some sort of secrecy about this. I would ask the council to consider how secret can it be when the SAAS executive team met with staff across the state, including every team leader in the Ambulance Service? How secretive could it be if we had 13 staff focus groups conducted by the SAAS chief executive officer? There was staff communication and the union was briefed. Of course, the ongoing engagement of families in relation to the incidents continued. So this was not a secretive matter, but it was completely appropriate to await the independent review of the systemic issues.