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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-07-06 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL

Estimates Committees

Adjourned debate on motion:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (16:58): Another one of the groups where I had questioning responsibility was urban development and planning. That was an interesting one with the Deputy Premier and the minister. It covered things like the West Beach Trust and the Adelaide Cemeteries Authority. We did have some interesting questions there because of my previous role, having been an executive member of the Cemeteries Association of South Australia. Importantly, we talked about planning matters. There was some good dialogue about the chief executives group and what they do to ensure that challenges in the way are actually met and what happens there and, importantly, we all agreed that planning is one of the most basic things that has to be right. There has to be the forum around it in which developers or any person who has a proposal knows what the rules are and that the flexibility exists to change those rules where appropriate, and that there are concerns about the time frames taken for that.

That time frame delay has been frustrating members of parliament for many years and people in local government for many years. Even for a ministerial DPA, the target that the department sets for itself was some 11 months but its achievement was 17 months—for a ministerial DPA to go through. For local government ones or ones driven by private developers who put up developer-funded DPAs, the time delay is rather long. I posed a question on behalf of the member for Flinders about a development at Port Lincoln which is deferred residential 2, where the property owner there is seriously asking, 'What is going on?'

I am told by Mr Nightingale, chief executive of that department, that he has asked local governments to prioritise their top three DPA reviews, and that is going to come through and will be the emphasis of what the minister's department will do. I would encourage the minister to ensure that that works quickly and smoothly to give some confidence to the industry.

Another area I questioned was the southern suburbs, which has only a relatively small economic profile of about $360,000, I think. While I gave due deference to the member for Morphett and his questioning of the Minister for Health about very important health matters, which have only one hour for each of the $1 billion involved in health, it overflowed by some 13 minutes or so and, when the changeover occurred, it left me with only 12 minutes to talk about southern suburbs.

The south is a very important part of metropolitan Adelaide. We all know that it has had challenges, and it has had some resources put into it which, hopefully, are ensuring, as much as possible, that business growth is going to occur and that economic opportunity will exist for the residents of the south. I hope that the Office for the Southern Suburbs (and it seems strange to me that it is located in the CBD office area) works smoothly and gives chances for those good people of southern Adelaide.

As to education, the member for Unley (David Pisoni) allowed me to come in to ask questions about school bus contracts, which are of particular interest to me. I had the opportunity of estimates with minister Conlon for three hours on the Wednesday morning and then went to the meeting with the Bus and Coach Association—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: Well, yes, it was a nice way to spend three hours. We did not have an argument, and we got some good info out. The Bus and Coach Association really has some grave concerns, and they relate to the benchmark figure that has been set by the Department of Education and Children's Services for the cost of services. In the first round of contracts that have gone out, of those 45 some 20 have been let to one company, which was not a pre-existing supplier; the others, as I understand it, have gone to pre-existing suppliers, and there is a tolerance figure of some 5 per cent to recognise that they are, in the main, smaller family companies.

There is a great level of concern from the Bus and Coach Association about the benchmark. They tell me that in discussions with DECS staff over the last 10 years, the concerns have been acknowledged to some degree. There has been a review, and that has been audited—again, by an independent group—but, again, the BCA comes back to me constantly about the need for it to be reviewed, and it asked two staff members from DECS who were at the meeting last Wednesday if there was a chance to seek support from the minister for the contract process to be delayed until the benchmark had been reviewed so that there was acceptance within the industry of it. I am hopeful that that has occurred. I asked questions of minister Weatherill the next day about that but, as I understand it, the Bus and Coach Association is still very worried about the future.

The northern suburbs was another area about which I asked questions, and it was pleasing to recognise the attendance in the chamber of Hon. Lea Stevens, who is the Executive Director of Northern Connections. The Hon. Lea Stevens has taken on that role in the last few months, and I commend her for the commitment she will bring. There is no doubt that, as the former member for Little Para, her heart is very much in the north, and if anybody is able to ensure that there is an opportunity to overcome the challenges that face those people, with some endemic concerns that have gone through multiple generations, the Hon. Lea Stevens will lead the way.

Let's hope that there are some great outcomes because it is important that we get more people in the workforce to replace our baby boomer generation at retirement. There are great chances that are going to occur in the north, and there is no doubt that it is one of our prominent growth areas—and the member for Little Para nods in agreement. Let's ensure that for younger kids, kids at school, and all through the age profiles, there is the mentoring and the support that gives them a chance in the future.

Small business was another area on which I asked questions. The minister was not necessarily surprised when I had a preliminary focus on Business Enterprise Centre funding, as it had been an area of questions I posed to him in last year's estimates session. The house would be aware that BEC funding closed from a state government perspective on 30 June. I am certainly aware that local government support for BECs in some areas is now being reviewed because that was contingent upon state government support. My greater concern is not just that local governments are reviewing what they are going to do but what the federal government—which has a three-year funding agreement in place which runs out, I believe, at the end of March 2012—is going to do because the BEC network has some 70,000 contacts per year, be it personal, telephone or email.

It is these small business operators who are actually screaming out for more support. They are, indeed, the fulcrum around which the economy of South Australia operates. As the minister quoted in his opening comment, we have 138,000 small businesses, representing 96 per cent of business operations in South Australia. In the main, these are quite small. They work very hard in the job they do, they need support and for them, a lot of times, an opportunity to contact the Business Enterprise Centre network and get free and impartial advice makes a difference to the success of their business. The minister has put focus on a program of $1 million over two years with Business SA. I hope that Business SA ensures that the services it provides go out to all business operators across regional and suburban South Australia because it is important that we get it right.

Gambling was another area I asked questions on on behalf of the Hon. Terry Stephens.

The Hon. M.J. Wright: You asked a lot of questions.

Mr GRIFFITHS: I did, and the honourable member provided a great forum for us to ask questions too. With gambling, I asked questions about the inspectors in gambling facilities and the timing of those, and some questions about the removal of the cap on the trading of gaming machine licences and the impact that is going to have on getting rid of the last 730 or so of the 3,000 machines that are required to be removed, as per laws passed by this house and this parliament in, I think, 2004. There has been no trading for some time. The cap removal comes into place from 1 July. I certainly hope that it allows those numbers to go and gives some surety to the industry too.

With respect to government enterprises, the questions focused on Service SA operations and registration. I know I have had a lot of contact from people in the community concerned about the removal of the six and nine-month renewal options for their registration. Also, I have had some suggestions from the community about a direct debit opportunity to allow for monthly payment from their bank accounts for their vehicle registrations, just as a cash flow opportunity for people, instead of paying one large sum for a 12-month registration or a smaller sum for the three-month registration, but we know that comes at an additional cost.

The minister did have some correspondence from me and she has replied to that indicating that some investigations are occurring on the direct debit system, but she certainly expressed some concerns, during estimates sessions, about the practicalities of how that might work. We hope that there is some thought there.

I think there is a bit more acceptance of the removal of registration stickers. It will be interesting to see how that works, though, from 1 July. I certainly hope that every South Australian driver and car owner out there ensures that they have their car registered and third-party insurance in place because, if they do not and they have an accident, there are going to be some grave consequences of that.

The next area is regional development. I questioned the reason for an underspend in the Riverland Futures of $4 million in the 2010-11 financial year and $1 million for the Upper Spencer Gulf Enterprise Zone for the 2010-11 financial year. The assurance was certainly given that those funds are going to be carried forward. They need to be, too, because they are very important programs and it is important that those funds are expended in total within the original time frame which is, I think, four or five years.

I also asked a lot of questions about Regional Development Australia. Members in this chamber would be aware that funding for the RDAs closes as of 30 June 2013. The RDAs are the prime economic opportunity drivers within regional areas. There are eight of them. The withdrawal of the funding is at a cost of about $4.1 million to the budget. Certainly, every report that I have ever read from an RDA talks in glowing terms about the number of jobs they have created and about the economic development that has occurred within their region that they have been prime drivers of. It seems to me that a $4.1 million investment in regional South Australia returns itself at least 100 times over, so that must be a good equation to determine it and they are worthy of support.

These are good people. I posed the question to the minister. These are good people who have worked for a lot of time in economic development in the regions. Indeed, their skills will be lost unless there is some surety of contract. It will finish before two years when the money runs out because, unless those people have been given a commitment and because they all have bills to pay themselves, they will start looking for other opportunities.

I give minister Gago the recognition that, on this one, I took some hope from her, but, similarly, I took some hope when minister O'Brien held that portfolio last year in estimates. I think there is a great desire amongst those ministers to ensure that it continues. The great challenge for them is to ensure they can put the argument up to the Treasurer to get the money to come forward in a couple of years' time, preferably even before that, because it is important that it continues.

Rec and sport was an interesting one. It is not my shadow portfolio area but I asked questions on behalf of the Hon. Terry Stephens, and I appreciated the assistance of the Hon. Michael Wright, a couple of suggestions about Adelaide Oval questions that helped the cause immensely. The focus of that was on the South Australian Sports Institute, the review of funding arrangements there and the taking away of funding support from seven sports areas. It is interesting that one of those is tennis.

I know that the minister talks about the fact that tennis actually has the ability to fund its elite development operations itself, but the fact that a young South Australian, Luke Saville, from Cobdogla near Barmera, is the most recent Wimbledon boy's tennis champion really does show that there are some great sporting opportunities happening in South Australia. So while these difficult decisions are made by government, I hope that sporting opportunities are not lost.

There will be questions about the sports hub that will be developed at the aquatic centre, and there was a commitment given about the Port Augusta sporting facility that both parties went to the state election on, confirming support of $5 million. While the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing has approval to carry that forward into the 2011-12 financial year, he is unsure beyond that, so let us just hope that we can get the money from the feds—from memory, I think that project was about $13 million—because it is important that it goes through.

It was also interesting that the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing had not had a briefing in any form from the Stadium Management Authority about the Adelaide Oval development. I was rather surprised at that. He is relatively new to the portfolio, and his excuse was that the Minister for Infrastructure was responsible for it. I said that yes, that minister will build it, but then it is a sporting facility and, presumably, the minister for rec and sport would have some involvement in it. I would have thought he would have liked to have seen the business plan on that.

Transport was the main focus on the first day, and we talked about regional roads flooding from the December and January flooding incidents and the need for local government to get support—I think they have something like $38 million liability in road damages. Adelaide Oval was discussed, and the Land Management Corporation. Only 4.3 per cent of the available land for the development within the 30-year growth plan is actually controlled by the LMC; the majority of it rests in private hands. That is interesting to see; it is a bit of a change. I presumed that the LMC had a far greater ownership of land within that area. Indeed, in the forward estimates it recognises a reduction of returns back to Treasury from LMC operations as their accessible land is fully developed and purchased by people.

Within the Premier's area of economic development I was frustrated that there was no recognition of what the impact would be of the removal of funding for business enterprise centres and Regional Development Australia. I asked if that were a question that he posed to the Economic Development Board, and it was not. That is rather disappointing.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The honourable member's time has expired. Member for Morphett.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (17:13): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know you had cause to call me to order during the estimates committee, but that is only because—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is because you were a little feisty, member for Morphett.

Dr McFETRIDGE: I am very passionate about my portfolios, and always have been over the years. I have had a number of portfolios and I have always tried to do the best I can with the limited resources we have in opposition. In estimates it always amazes me that we have the minister come along, with hundreds of hours of work put in by their officers for months beforehand, and we still cannot get all the answers we want.

The David and Goliath battle that goes on between government and opposition is politics, I suppose. The estimates process is one that, while it has been described as everything from a near death experience to an absolute waste of time, does serve the purpose of at least being able to question and re-question—with quite a bit of flexibility—the minister who is in the chair for that day. In my case the main one, obviously, was my major portfolio of health.

The budget for health this year is a little bit over $4.6 billion. I had 4½ hours to do that, and thanks to the member for Goyder we were able to extend by an extra 15 minutes into Southern Suburbs. So we had 4¾ hours for $4.6 billion to $4.7 billion; a billion dollars an hour. It is really something that you need a number of days to do thoroughly. I have probably twice as many questions that will go on notice as I was able to ask during that brief period of the sitting of the committee.

The other portfolio I was involved in was veterans affairs, which was only half an hour with the Treasurer and Minister for Veterans' Affairs. It is always a bipartisan approach to this committee. There were a couple of issues—on rent for veterans organisations at the Torrens Parade Ground and their not having their rent put up, and I was concerned about veterans having to pay for car parking at the Repat but, of course, that overflowed into the health portfolio.

I was on the road safety estimates committee with the member for Kavel, and I was astonished to hear the minister say that, according to him, drivers are responsible for 100 per cent of road accidents. We did have to point out to him that, while driver behaviour has significant input, road design, the condition of roads and equipment failure are also significant causes. I think that he will learn from the people who were having input on the airwaves today that he should show a little bit more humility and listen to other people's points of view.

The other portfolio in the estimates committee I sat in on was Aboriginal affairs, which has been another area of deep interest to me. I am not the shadow minister anymore; the Hon. Terry Stephens in the other place is. This year, though, the new member for Norwood, Steven Marshall, is on the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee. He is very passionate about Aboriginal affairs, so I was more than happy to ask him if he wanted to run this estimates committee and give him the opportunity to show what he can do. He did so exceptionally well with the assistance of another up-and-coming member in this place, the member for Stuart. Between them, they did a great job and were able to get some information of use on that portfolio for all South Australians and not just the opposition.

I will spend most of the 16 minutes left to me talking about the major portfolio of health, mental health and substance abuse, and I will need every moment, just as I needed every moment of the 4½ hours I had in the estimate committee. I could have used 4½ days, not 4½ hours, to question the minister. Because of the pressure everybody is under, you do get a bit testy, you do get a bit frustrated, you do get a bit annoyed, and sometimes you might overlook a point you wanted to make, and there is one I certainly want to clear up right from the word go, that is, the Premier's pledge card. We knew that it was better hospitals, more beds, but what we needed to clear up was the number of beds this government has delivered for South Australia.

In a question on notice to the minister, I asked about the number of public acute hospital beds from 1994-95 to 2008-09. As per the table in his answer, he has given them to me. In 2001-02, there were 2,601 metropolitan hospital beds, and in 2008-09 there were 2,819, so there was an increase of over 200. There were 1,962 country hospital beds in 2001-02; in 2008-09, there were 1,819, which is a significant decrease. When you add those up, the total hospital beds in 2001-02 were 4,563; in 2009-10 (because we had an update from the minister during estimates) there were 4,628—that is 65 more beds. It is nothing to crow about.

I should have perhaps been quicker on my feet on the day to point out to the minister that, while there are over 200 more beds in the city, when you put the whole of the state together—and we should consider the whole of the state, as the health department needs to, not citycentric positions—there are 65 more beds. The minister did comment in estimates that there was a reduction of over 400 acute beds in the country during the Liberal's time in government. To give him his due, and I will be fair this time—he is not always as fair as he might be, in my opinion—he did admit that a number of those beds were converted to aged-care beds. It will be interesting to add those up.

I do not have the figures on those, but I would be very certain that when you add up the number of acute beds in country hospitals that were converted to aged-care beds that there would be a very small reduction in those, but when you add up the numbers that the minister gave us when we were asking about acute care beds in hospitals, there is a significant reduction in numbers between when the Liberals left and 2008-09. The minister was not able to give us the 2009-10 figures for country beds, but certainly there had been a 10-bed reduction between 2008-09 and 2009-10 in the city.

We need more hospital beds. We know that. We know the new hospital has 700 acute beds and then another 100 dialysis chairs, oncology chairs and day surgery chairs. The minister is being a bit tricky about it by saying that we have 800 beds. It is not; it is 700 acute beds. We know that. The current Royal Adelaide Hospital has 662 acute beds.

When you look at the dashboards, the inpatient dashboards—and I will talk about dashboards a bit more in a moment—which show the demand on our inpatient beds, you will see that in many cases, with 662 available beds, it is well over 700 beds that are being occupied.

At one stage (I think it was two weeks ago), Dr Peter Sharley, the AMA President, said that there were 735 acute beds with inpatients in that hospital. How can they do that? It is because the hospital had over 800 beds. Many of those beds have been shut down and not funded. The hospital is only funded for 662 beds. So, when you are running over 700 patients you have to drag that money and fund those beds from somewhere, so hospitals overrun their budgets.

The government is going to have to think carefully about where it is putting the money and where it is putting the beds. We know that every day in South Australia there are 500 South Australians from near and far, from rural and regional areas, who are in our city hospitals. They are there for obvious reasons. You cannot have a heart transplant in every hospital. That is just not going to happen.

What you do need to have are acute facilities, tertiary hospitals and facilities where country people can come to have their treatment, but then, at the first possible moment, they should be able to go home. If you do not have beds in the country then they cannot go home to their families and they cannot go home to their communities. It is not just about building that edifice down the road.

Talking about mathematics, the minister was a bit harsh in some of the comments he made about me being able to count. The minister should look at what he said about the capital spend. In 2005-06, it was $362.1 million. In 2011-12, it is $497.8 million, an increase of $135.7 million. The minister said that was a 267 per cent increase. I do not think so. It is a 37.5 per cent increase.

In the budget overruns, the minister said that the budget was $4.7 billion and that it had overspent by $100 million. The minister said that was a quarter of a per cent. It is 2.13 per cent, minister. So, you cannot go out saying that you are as perfect as you wish to be if you are talking like that.

We did get some real figures though out of the minister. It took a while. It took a bit of dragging and a bit of persuasion for the minister to finally admit that the cost of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, the cost that has been put on the books of the Treasury in 2016, is $2.8 billion.

We know that when you go out to—I was going to say Biancos, but there is a South Australian company that has done a lot of good for this state but is having problems now—the hardware store and buy all of your bricks and mortar to build your house, that is only part of the problem, that is only part of the cost. The $1.8 billion that they have been talking about for building that hospital down there, that is part of the cost.

You then have borrow the money and you have to pay interest on that money. If you cannot pay that interest back straightaway, or it is not being paid back straightaway, it is capitalised. That is what is going to happen, $670 million-odd is going to be capitalised, the interest is going to be capitalised. So, when you add on that and some other costs, the total cost that is going on the ledger in 2016 is $2.8 billion. It is a $2.8 billion hospital.

When you look at the repayments for that 700-bed hospital, those repayments are not locked in, there is nothing fixed about it. If the base interest rate, and I am no economist, I am no accountant, and I think that is the one set by the Reserve Bank, if that moves then we could be paying a lot more. We could be paying up to $500 million a year in repayments for that hospital. The average, they say, is 370 or 380; it is a significant amount of money. It is $1.1 million a day. If interest rates go up, and we are paying $500 million a year, it is about $1.5 million a day we would be paying for that hospital. Sure, we have a product in return, but go down the road and look at what we have already.

This was the other issue that the minister was being very tricky about. We asked him: what was the asset value of the Royal Adelaide Hospital as it stands at the corner of Frome Road and North Terrace? They were very tricky about it. He tried to say it was going to be a liability. If it is a liability, minister, why have you put so much money into it in the last few years? Why did you move to renal transplant unit there from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital? Why are you doing that if it is a liability? It is an asset to this state; it has been for many years. There are world-class facilities there already now. It is an asset. It is a billion-dollar asset. There is an opportunity cost in you bulldozing that and moving down the road. So, that asset is going to come off the books when you move down the road. You are going to write off $1 billion.

I asked about some of the equipment in the Royal Adelaide Hospital as it is now and what is happening down the road at the new one. Some of it—computer screens were an example. Computer terminals were going down the road, but there is a lot of it that we understand is going to be given the flick; it is going to be turfed out. We will be watching very carefully what the transition plans are between the current site at Frome Road-North Terrace down to the rail yards site. If there is any wastage, if there is any equipment that is dumped in the rubbish, then we will be very loud and vocal about making sure that does not happen, because it should never happen.

Having said that, we should remember that in 2016—we are working very hard on this, and we should not be arrogant—the future premier, Isobel Redmond, will be cutting the ribbon on it and, if I have the opportunity to be the health minister, I will make sure that the equipment that is down at the Royal Adelaide Hospital now is not going to be dumped, that it is going to be used to the best of its ability. That may not be at the rail yards but it may be going out into the country or it may be re-used somewhere else to the very best of our ability.

It is very important that we do make sure that the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is going to be value for money because we know that the minister said in March 2010 just before the election that it was $1.7 billion (he told Leon Byner that) when he knew, because the Auditor-General said so because cabinet signed off in November 2009, it was $1.8 billion. They were not telling the truth then, and we know now that the actual cost is $2.8 billion.

The non-clinical support contract with Spotless: it will be interesting to watch that, because non-clinical support is everything from the catering, cleaning, cooking, security guards to the helpdesk. That is a flexible arrangement. There will be some costs going up over the years. We will watch that very carefully.

The big announcement on the day was that the government was going to be open and honest about the pressure on our emergency departments. After months of me showing and embarrassing the minister in here every day with the emergency department dashboards and the inpatient dashboards showing the capacity and the pressure on our hospitals, the minister came out and said that this was world first. What he has put up on the health website is the emergency department (ED) dashboards for each hospital. I encourage people to go on there and have a look.

It is a traffic light system. It does not tell you this on the website; it gives it in a roundabout sort of way. It does not tell you honestly that the green is when the capacity is less than 80 per cent, amber is 80 to 95 per cent, red is 95 to 125 per cent, and white is 125 per cent capacity. They are bursting at the seams. Any day you go on there—today, the women's and kids' was at white again. The women's and kids' is on white most of the time, and most of the other hospitals are on red or white a lot of the time. Those hospitals are bursting at the seams.

The minister has another new column on there, compared with the ones I was getting about average waiting times, and they are in a matter of minutes. When you actually go and look at the capacity plans for our hospitals—not the current situation as it is today at this moment on the dashboards—you can see the way the hospital is planning their potential admissions. You read, for example, last Wednesday 29 June at 3.31pm, the Royal Adelaide Hospital ED occupancy was 75, there were 27 patients waiting more than four hours, there were 11 patients waiting more than eight hours, there were nine patients waiting greater than 12 hours, and the average length of stay (ALOS) in hours in the emergency department was 50.1 hours.

In the Women's and Children's Hospital today, there is one poor little kid who has been waiting more than 24 hours for a bed.

Mr Pederick: Shame!

Dr McFETRIDGE: It is an absolute shame, and we are not seeing the truth from the government. If people are going to look at the ED information on the Health website, go into the glossary and go into Frequently Asked Questions, and if you do not understand that, go to my website and you can download the users guide for the dashboards; it is all there.

You need to understand it so that the government can be embarrassed by the fact that it is just in denial. This minister has been in denial for months and months. He keeps trying to deflect to the fact that they are extending some hospitals, sure, and that is a good thing, but it will not be happening until 2014 or 2016, and we saw delays at Noarlunga and at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

It is a real travesty that South Australian taxpayers are not getting the value for money in health that they should. We are spending more and more. How is this government clawing back its overruns? It is introducing car parking. The veterans down at the Repat are going to be paying for car parking. They can get it back if they go through a convoluted process of filling out forms—which nobody wants to see—but other people will need to pay. There will be a lot more said about car parking over the next few weeks and months.

This government is not doing what it promised to do. It is not delivering a better heath service for South Australia. The ED dashboards on the website will not deliver one more doctor, one more nurse or one more bed, but they look pretty. The dashboards are quite confusing if you have no idea what you are talking about, so go and read the FAQs and the glossary, and go to my website and have a look at the users guide, to see what is going on in our hospitals.

I challenge the minister to do what the Western Australian government is doing, and that is not just one page as he said on ABC radio in an attempt to belittle what I was saying. A range of information is provided on the Western Australian Health website, and that is what we will be doing. It is not expensive, and it is easily done. The website can be maintained and managed by less than half an FTE and, each day, you can update the ED daily activity—attendances, admissions, ambulance attendances and ambulance diversions. It could also include ambulance ramping.

Every hospital in Western Australia, both country and city, lists its occupancy every day, and that is the sort of information that South Australians deserve. They do not want to know how many are in various streams within the hospital; they want to know whether they can be admitted into a hospital, how many beds are available, and what the minister is doing about ambulance ramping and overcrowding in emergency departments, and what he his doing to fix this health system.

The minister has done none of that, and he is in complete denial. He cannot continue to divert through Crisis Management 101, which is 'Deny, deny, deny. Deflect, deflect deflect.' We have had enough of the denials and the deflections, and the more you look at the health budget, you will see that he was tricky in his answers, and you will see that it is time for this minister to go. We know that he has told cabinet he will be retiring in 2014; it is time for him to go now and give the job to somebody else who can do it. I cannot wait until 2014, and, if I am the health minister, by heck, I am going to do a much better job than he has done.

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