Healthcare Sector Workers

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:48): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing questions to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector about union action.

Leave granted.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: The opposition spoke recently to a lady who regularly travels 170 kilometres each way to and from public hospitals for neurology appointments on a pathway to a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Sometimes her hands do not work, sometimes her throat does not work well. Her husband's farm income has dried up with the drought, and her two children have regular extracurricular activities before and after school.

Today, her stress levels were elevated due to her being unsure if her appointments will or will not go ahead during the proposed doctors strike. After so much family preparation and planning to make these important appointments happen, she is concerned the four of them will drive up to Adelaide only to have to turn around again. My question to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector are:

1. Can the minister guarantee that scheduled appointments will go ahead when people like this lady travel to Adelaide during proposed strike action?

2. To that end, what guarantees can the government give any patient, local or regional, that their appointments will go ahead?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for her question, and that is in relation to action that is being taken by doctors in our public health system who are represented by SASMOA, the association that is effectively the doctors' union. I think I commented yesterday, when asked in the media about planned industrial action, that it would be preferable if that union's leadership was able to rule out any effect on patient safety for action that they are taking. It is not up to me as the industrial relations minister; that is something that is in the hands of the union that represents doctors.

I think it has been publicly ventilated that there is a claim from the doctors' union for a 30 per cent pay rise over three years. I think the Premier, the Treasurer and others have said that is not going to happen. That sort of pay increase, particularly for senior doctors, some who earn many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, would equate to pay rises—just pay rises over three years—of some hundreds of thousands, $300,000 or $400,000 for some of the best paid doctors. When you think about that sort of pay rise and the number of hospital orderlies that could employ, or the number of disability care workers or aged-care workers that could be employed from a pay rise over three years—just a pay rise, not base pay—of $300,000 or $400,000, I think most South Australians would say that is not a valuable way for the state government to spend its money.

I would very much hope that the union that represents doctors is able to, if they are taking the action, do it in such a way that does not compromise public safety because a 30 per cent pay rise over three years for senior doctors, many of whom are already the best paid in the whole of the country, is not something we are able to contemplate.