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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-09-24 Daily Xml
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IRIS SYSTEMS

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Health. Why was it necessary for the minister to allow his department to enter into a contract with IRIS Systems International Pty Ltd which was and which remains under investigation (as he has told the house) by the Anti-Corruption Unit; and was he informed that, having sold the intellectual property of IRIS for $1, they would need to buy it back for at least a year at a cost of $300,000 because it would cost millions of dollars to replace it under another system? The opposition has now been informed that, in allowing the intellectual property to be sold off for $1, the government failed to secure continued access to the system for its own purposes and was forced to buy back the access of the system from the new private owners that it sold it to for $1, as it would otherwise cost between $10 and $20 million to purchase or redevelop a new system as a replacement.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:00): As is normal for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, she bases her questions on assumptions which are false. The government did not do the things that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition claims it has done. The government became aware of this at a particular point of time and we are going through the investigation as to why things happened in the way that they did. As I pointed out to the house, this was an organisation which had its own board and was run at arm's length from the government. I have always disliked that arrangement and I have taken action to get rid of it. It is now directly run by the government, and we are in the process of understanding what happened, why it happened, to whom it happened and where it went wrong. I already answered the substance of the question last week.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The deputy leader will come to order.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: When the Deputy Leader of the Opposition asked me the same question last week, I said that we had no choice but to enter into a contractual arrangement to maintain the supply of software because Pathology SA could not deliver services to the community without that particular piece of intellectual property. One of the issues we are examining is why that transfer occurred and whether or not it was lawful. I am outraged by the circumstances that have arisen but, once we became aware of them, we took appropriate action to deal with them. The deputy leader can try as hard as she likes to slur the government, but the fact remains that it was she and her side of the house who defended the arrangements which were in place and which allowed this to happen.

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