Royal Adelaide Hospital Blackout

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:18): Supplementary: does the minister still agree with his own comments when he said on the ABC radio on 8 February 2018 that:

Well I think this is an example of a whole series of issues in relation to this incident. Let's put it this way, the case raises issues far beyond the IT glitch. It indicates a failure in scheduling. Okay, it had to be tested under load but why…did the test terminate in the middle of the morning surgery session? The morning surgery session starts at 8.30, this test terminated at 11—why not start it in the afternoon session and complete it after the surgery's finished?

The PRESIDENT: I am going to allow that supplementary; I must be generous. Minister.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:19): Indeed, Mr President, you are a very generous man.

The PRESIDENT: Well, it was sensible, though, so I am allowing you to answer it.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I'm not objecting. I'm just confirming what I know, which is that you are a very sensible man.

The honourable member invites me to compare the 2018 event with the 2019 event. I am very happy to do that. In 2018, under the former Labor government, they went into generator testing where procedures weren't followed, where staff were not advised in advance and the outage lasted 17 minutes. Yesterday, of course we regret that there was an outage, but, fundamentally differently, procedures were followed—procedures that reflect all the recommendations in the Frazer-Nash report. Secondly, staff were advised in advance, and the outage was four minutes—a quarter of the outage last year.

Of course, there are lessons to be learnt from every event, there will be lessons learnt from yesterday's event, but I support CALHN (the Central Adelaide Local Health Network) and their PP partners in their investigations. The fact of the matter is that we will continue to do testing of these generators because we need to make sure that, when emergency supplies are needed, they are reliable. This was a planned event, the procedures were followed, staff were advised and I wish all involved the speedy resolution of what lessons we can learn from this event.