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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-29 Daily Xml
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HEALTH DEPARTMENT STAFF

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (15:04): My question, again, is to the Minister for Health. How many—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for MacKillop, I cannot hear your colleague.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: How many public sector jobs in our hospitals are to be axed, at which hospitals and when as a result of the privatisation of maintenance services to private contractor Spotless? In November 2011 parliament heard that the government intended to provide a contract extension to Spotless worth around $100 million over three years without going to a competitive tender. It is understood that discussions are being held at hospitals now by the minister and the CEO, David Swan, to discuss the job cuts, with the most recent meeting being held at Noarlunga Hospital last Friday at 12.30.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:05): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I thank the member for this question. The facts are that the CEO of health, David Swan, and I visited Noarlunga Hospital last week to thank the staff there for the excellent work they have been doing to reach our goals in terms of health performance. A number of the workers in the facility's management section asked a series of questions. I said that I would meet with them to give them specific answers, but I will just give a broad overview.

We have, within government, an entity called the across government facilities management arrangements which are managed by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure and they provide engineering and building maintenance services and minor works across various government agencies. They do not currently cover Health. Government made a decision a little while ago to include Health.

I might point out to the member opposite that this system came into place in 1998 when the other side was the government of the day. So this scheme that the member for Waite is criticising, in fact, was a Liberal Party initiative. Our government has said, 'Okay—'

Mr WILLIAMS: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Standing order 98: the minister should not enter debate. When he said that the Liberal Party 'criticised', the Liberal Party in fact, via the shadow minister, simply asked a question about how many jobs were going to be lost.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! No, I do not uphold that point the order. Minister.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Madam Speaker, I just encourage the member to have a look at the words used by the member because he said, 'is the government privatising', and words to that effect. What I was pointing out is that the scheme is a scheme that has been in place—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —since 1998. It is not—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It is not—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister, could you just sit down until they go quiet so that we can hear your response. They have asked the question, they should listen.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a scheme that has been in place across other parts of government. Health is now being included in it. The services are currently delivered by two—

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Davenport, behave!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The services are currently provided, I am have advised, by two providers: Spotless is one of them; and Building Management Facilities Services, which is a government directorate within the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure. Transitional arrangement for this new process are occurring. None of the workers who are government employees who work in health at the moment will need to transfer into it if they do not want to. They will not be compelled to make changes to their government employment contracts. They can stay on the government books if they choose to; so, there are a range of ways in which they can be employed.

I have assured those workers—and I have had my office talk to them—that they would continue to be providing the services that they wanted to as government workers. So this is not a privatisation: this is adopting across health a system which was created when they were in government to provide these kinds of services across government agencies. I am very surprised that they are now criticising it, Madam Speaker.

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