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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-14 Daily Xml
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PORT AUGUSTA HEALTH SERVICES

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Stuart.

Ms Breuer: Good member. We'll miss you, Gunny.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (15:27): I am thrilled beyond the realms of expression with those comments. I commend the member for Flinders for the hard work she has done and the dedication she has put into serving her electorate. Last week the Labor Party held a health forum at Port Augusta. It was a fairly selective invitation that went out to elderly people.

Ms Breuer: Two thousand invites to everyone over 60.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: I suggest the honourable member listen to what I have to say. She might learn something. This particular forum, this stunt that was put up—and I have seen the invitations that went out; they made a number of assertions that were not correct. As the local member, I did not get an invitation but they had the Independent there because we know the Labor Party is promoting Independents to try to make life difficult. We know that; it is not hard to work that out.

Just listen to this. We had the usual spiel about how much was spent, but they did not go on to say how much extra money they had got from the GST or anything like that. They did not acknowledge the fact that the previous Liberal government built a new hospital up there, fixed up the hospital at Hawker, and put in a health centre at Orroroo—and I could go on. They did not explain why they would not support Nalya Lodge (the aged care facility) expanding at Peterborough; they did not talk about that. Do not worry; they are not going to get away with that; we will talk about it, all right.

One of the things the minister said was that there will be more general facilities at the Port Augusta Hospital and the introduction of a more centralised Aboriginal focused hospital at Port Augusta. What does that mean? I want to know what services at Port Augusta are going to be taken away, what services are going to be curtailed, how much more emphasis is going to be placed on looking after the Aboriginal members of the community, and what is going to happen to the other members of the community who want to use those facilities. They are the questions that need—

Ms Breuer: They'll get them. They'll get the services, too.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: No, hang on. There has been a downgrading because the minister says there are going to be four general hospitals: Port Lincoln, Whyalla—

Ms Breuer: Yes.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Yes, Whyalla has been given a boost and Port Augusta has been downgraded. That is what has happened.

Ms Breuer interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Yes. I wonder what the mayor of Port Augusta thinks about this. It will be interesting—I am looking forward to the discussion.

Ms Breuer: Gunny, this is not news. You're talking about something that's 12 months old. Have you only just woken up to it?

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: No; this is what your minister told the forum. You don't even know what he said.

Ms Breuer interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: The honourable member was there and she did not know what was said. These notes that I have in front of me were taken at the meeting. It is no good the member trying to gild the lily. I know exactly what took on.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: You weren't there?

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: No, I didn't go. I wasn't invited, but someone went and got the story. Don't worry about it! I might not know much about politics but I actually understand what goes on in my parish and how to get the information. What we want to know is exactly what services are going to be changed at the Port Augusta Hospital. Is there going to be a reduction in the number of general-purpose beds available? We have good hardworking people running the hospital and they have enough difficulties now without having services removed, so I want to know.

It is up to the minister, because with all this nonsense going on about how much better they are than the Liberal Party, he failed to tell the people that the previous Liberal government paid off the Bannon-Arnold Labor government's debts, paid those off as well as building these new facilities at places like Port Augusta, so I want to know exactly what is going to take place at that hospital because it is important.

There is a lovely new $19 million hospital up there providing a service so that the Flying Doctor can bring people back there and serve the general area. We did other things. We fixed the hospital at Booleroo Centre; we put those new health services in there at Orroroo; and there were all those other things we did around the electorate including fixing up things at Jamestown and all those sorts of improvements.

None of that was mentioned, but there was a general backhander at the previous government, when we paid off the debt so that they were in a better position. They never mentioned all the extra money they got from the GST taxes, which they complained about, which has lined their pockets with gold. Nothing was said about that, but they make these general sweeping statements so I am interested to know exactly what the plans are and how long it is going to take to put them into effect.

Time expired.

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