House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-06-18 Daily Xml

Contents

Health Budget

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:02): Supplementary, sir: can the minister tell the house how many hospital beds will be closed resulting from the $379 million in state health budget cuts that were built into last year's state budget, prior to the federal budget?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:02): It is interesting, given that the Hon. Rob Lucas has been running around telling everyone who would listen that the state government was cutting $1 billion in the health budget. The simple fact is that in state funding the state health budget will grow. We will spend more over the next four years in health than we do. Every single year, the health budget was growing. That is going to be difficult to do, given the cuts that the federal government has inflicted upon us but, every single year, every dollar in efficiency that we can find in our health system gets reinvested back into our health system to deliver better services for South Australians.