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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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Personal Explanation

KNIGHT, PROF. J.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna) (14:09): I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just by way of interjection across the chamber, the member for Morphett claimed that I personally attacked Dr John Knight in this chamber. This is completely inaccurate, and I just draw to the house's attention what I in fact did say on 27 October 2009, page 4419 of Hansard. I made a ministerial statement. I will not read it all, as members can look it up for themselves, but this is what I said:

Yesterday, the Director of the Cardiac and Thoracic Surgical Unit at the Flinders Medical Centre, Associate Professor John Knight, was suspended from his employment by the Chief Executive Officer of Southern Adelaide Health Service. The suspension relates to the circumstances surrounding cardiac surgery provided to an elderly patient on 25 November last year. The patient died a day after extensive surgery.

There are three other paragraphs. Towards the end, I said that I would not make any comment about it until various processes had been conducted. I put it to you, Mr Speaker, that there is no way in that at all that there was a personal attack on that person.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I shall hear what the member for Kaurna has to say.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was making the point that there is nothing there that could be taken to be a personal attack on Dr Knight. I was very careful in the words that I used on that—

Mr WILLIAMS: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: What?

Mr WILLIAMS: The member has been given leave of the house to make a personal explanation, and he is now going well beyond that; he is now debating—

The SPEAKER: If—

Mr WILLIAMS: He is now debating.

The SPEAKER: If the member for Kaurna—would you be seated, member for MacKillop. I am listening carefully to the member for Kaurna. I will pull him up if he engages in debate. In my judgement, he is not engaging in debate and, if any further member of the opposition takes a point of order and I judge there to be no debate, I will warn the member of the opposition who does so for obstructing the house. The member for Kaurna.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think my words speak for themselves: there was no attempt by me to attack the gentleman on that occasion. I thought it my duty, as the minister for health, to inform the house and the public that these actions had been taken, because they involved the suspension of a doctor following the death of a patient.

It was my view that this would become a matter of public comment, and I thought it was of importance, as is generally the case when these sorts of things arise, that the public should be given the facts. It is certainly something that I tried to do as a minister, particularly as it involved a surgeon from Queensland. At the time, if you recall, there was a lot of concern about issues to do with surgery coming from the Queensland health service.

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