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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Statutes Amendment (Boards and Committees - Abolition and Reform) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 12 February 2015.)

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:02): In speaking on this bill, I note that I am not the lead speaker for the opposition. The lead speaker for the opposition is not in fact in the chamber but is being found right now. The last information the government provided to the opposition was that the order provided through the week was that we would finish the bill that we were going through last night when the Attorney-General was speaking.

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta is quite correct.

Mr GARDNER: Yes, indeed. I am speaking on this bill given that the opportunity for the lead speaker to speak must therefore be arranged. The government has stated an ambition to abolish a whole range of boards and committees, and there will be some opportunities that the opposition will take issue with and some that the opposition will support, and those will be outlined shortly in expert fashion by the shadow attorney-general (the Deputy Leader of the Opposition) and, indeed, by a range of other members of the opposition who have concerns about some of the boards and committees that the government proposes to abolish.

However, on the other hand, there is no doubt some merit in abolishing some. When the government says that these efficiencies are required because efficiency is in itself a good thing, the opposition agrees. Efficiency is a good thing. We would like to save money when a board or a committee is not benefiting the people of South Australia through its continued existence, so we heartily support and endorse that.

The concern I have is twofold. Where boards and committees are being sought to be abolished because the board or committee in question presents what the government might see as a stumbling block through its frank and fearless advice, which might potentially embarrass the government, or, indeed, through its expert advice that the government may from time to time choose to ignore because they are too incompetent to know good advice when they hear it, that presents a problem. When the government refuses to accept frank and fearless advice that is good advice and their response is just to abolish the committee, that presents us with a sincere problem. So, we will be raising some concerns of that nature.

The second concern I have is where in some of these cases an argument can be put that a board or a committee may be in existence to provide advice. It may not be called on very regularly, because the matter in question, though important, might not be one where changes are regularly being made. So, on those sorts of occasions, the question has to be asked: is it worth continuing with such a committee?

If there is in fact no financial waste as a result of the committee or panel's existence and the panel or committee is being abolished just for convenience of the government so that they can make their press release look more attractive when they talk about how many boards and committees they are abolishing, when there is actually no objective benefit to the state through the abolition of the committee and indeed if the matter to which that committee or panel provides advice comes up, then I think the government is barking up the wrong tree.

Without wanting to labour the point, I will allow the lead speaker for the opposition to go through the matters in detail, and I look forward to the further passage of this bill and to the advice from the government, when they want to come back and debate the bill for which I made myself available in the chamber in the first place.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:05): This is a bill that has returned to the parliament, namely the Statutes Amendment (Boards and Committees—Abolition and Reform) Bill from 2014, and which was prosecuted by the Premier. It follows the Premier's announcement mid last year that there would be a review of all boards and committees of the South Australian government, the intention being that there had to be some opportunity for them to present to the government to justify their continued existence and to decide, if they were not to continue, that they would either be abolished or replaced by a structure or management arrangement (i.e. internal department or ministerial management) where they had not achieved a threshold of justification.

Subsequently, the Premier announced that, of the 429 boards and committees, 90 would be retained, 107 would be abolished, 17 would be merged, and 62 would be subject to further review. This bill abolishes I think some 56, or thereabouts, either abolishing them or merging them with some other entity, simplifying them or the like. Certainly, there has been a group through this exercise that has lived to fight another day and apparently remain under review by the government, but which may still have the fate of abolition. Some, of course, are able to be dismantled, reformed or renovated by a regulatory procedure, guidelines, ministerial edict or whatever, but some require the statute, and that is why we are here.

The opposition have, in short, identified a number of areas where we agree with the government that abolition of the structure that exists is justified. Sometimes it is because they have completed their task and they are no longer required. I can think of a number of boards that were set up to supervise housing developments, for example, which are now either underway or completed and no longer require that type of structure to continue. There are a number in the area which I look after for the opposition, in urban development and in the Attorney-General's responsibility, which we would agree with the government have passed their use-by date, many of whom have done excellent work but there is no reason why they ought to be accommodated.

There are four areas, however, in which we feel the government are progressing with an abolition or a destruction of a structure which currently exists which is ill conceived in the decision to do so and will produce an alternative regime which will totally inadequately deal with the proper management of that area of responsibility.

One is the proposed abolition of the South Australian Tourism Commission Board. A second is the abolition of the Pastoral Board. The third is the abolition of the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, and the final area is the Health Performance Council. I wish to refer to each of these in turn. Other members on our side who are very familiar with the operation of a number of these, I do not doubt, will elaborate on the concerns raised in these areas, but I will try to, as succinctly as possible, put the positions as we see them.

Firstly, in relation to tourism, the announcement that the government would consider abolishing the South Australian Tourism Commission Board was met with an enormous amount of concern. Let me go to those who have indicated their disquiet, and start with the Tourism and Transport Forum Australia. This is a national body, which was established as a peak body to represent companies in Australia's tourism, aviation and transport sectors. It is one with which I am sure most members would be familiar. It has significant interests in South Australia. It periodically publishes its recommendations for consideration by state and federal governments and, indeed, local governments but particularly the former.

They have been instrumental in identifying for the lawmakers and the governments of the day areas of development and opportunity to dovetail into the benefit of both infrastructure, particularly transport opportunities, and tourism, in the clear recognition that you just do not have a tourism industry unless you have the infrastructure to go with it and the transport corridors and/or shipping or marine ferries and the like that are necessary to be able to take advantage of that for South Australia's benefit. The TTF has been quite forthright in indicating that the South Australian Tourism Commission Board is an integral part of making sure that that is delivered. In their submission they say:

The decision to abolish the SATC board and deliver full control of the agency to the minister threatens to stall that momentum and with it the economic growth and jobs that a strong tourism industry brings. The government has indicated that the abolition and merger of these boards, along with the abolition of more than 100 other government boards will be dealt with through an omnibus piece of legislation. When this omnibus legislation comes before you in the House of Assembly, I urge you to vote against the abolition of the SATC board and the merger of the ACC board.

They go on to say:

It's good governance practice to have the SATC operate in a commercial environment at arm's length from the government with the oversight of an independent business orientated and expert board. This best-practice structure is also in place in every state and territory, except the ACT. A formally constituted board provides a clear layer of accountability for the chief executive, gives the industry certainty about the rigour of the agency's strategic framework and encourages investment. Removing this level of governance unnecessarily exposes the decision making process at SATC to the vagaries of the political cycle and creates uncertainty for investors in South Australia.

They made their position very clear. Mr Bignell, or the cabinet, did not listen. He takes the view, in response to the concerns raised, that he has considered the correspondence during the consultation period. In a letter to me dated 18 January 2014 he says:

Decisions like these have not been made lightly and have come about from discussions I have had with hundreds of people throughout the state during the past 24 months.

I had a little look at some of these submissions, and sure some of them are by people who I think have a vested interest in supporting the government's position, but parties such as the Australian Tourism Export Council, together with the TTF and others, have made it abundantly clear that an independent body is important.

The minister also states in a letter dated 31 October 2014, after repeating having had discussions with hundreds of people:

The chair of the South Australian branch of the Australian Tourism Export Council, Mr Paul Brown, was included in this process and is supportive of the government's decision. Mr Brown has accepted a position on the new industry panel.

I rest my case. For those who have been given the leg up or the leg across to be able to have an opportunity to serve in the new structure, of course they are going to come out and make positive statements about what is a government decision, but the independent people who have actually identified the significance of having this independence have identified the merit.

Let's understand this: if we are dealing with major projects of property, subsidy, or support either to tourism enterprises or infrastructure to go with them, then it is absolutely imperative that we have an independent board to make those decisions. How clearly should that be enunciated in the background of the government's decision, for example, on the Gillman development, where they had the Renewal SA board saying to them not to do certain things in a process and a government department saying not to do things regarding their decision in relation to a development of the Gillman land? However, they set up a structure to bypass the advice from the Renewal SA board, four of whom have subsequently resigned.

It was quite unique of the Premier to set up a structure so that the CEO, the then Mr Fred Hansen who was appointed to this role, had direct accountability not to the board, as applies in other enterprises where we have government boards, but to the minister. Instead of being accountable to the board like most CEOs—the CEO, for example, who is accountable to the board for the SA Water Corporation and there are a multitude of other examples—in this instance we have a separate statutory body which has a new line of command from the minister to the CEO, and we can see what happened in that scenario. What a debacle.

Tourism is very important for the future of South Australia and it involves decisions about prioritising transport and other infrastructure projects to support it, yet we are getting rid of a board. Consequently, the tourism industry will be directly accountable to a minister. If ever that opened up a door for potential misconduct, maladministration or even corruption, I do not know what would, and so I would urge the government to rethink this issue. This is a very important board. It has a very important independent role. It has a commercial accountability role and it has an obligation obviously to report to the parliament and provide that level of independence. I think that is critical and I am concerned that the government should be so intent as to try to bulldoze through a proposed abolition of this board.

In addition, of course, we have the submission from the South Australian Tourism Commission and their plea to the government in their presentation on 15 August last year by Ms Jane Jeffreys who is the chair—and I think for a period that also overlapped with her role as the chief executive officer. Others may be more familiar with what the current position is, but I think there was certainly a period where she operated both as chair and chief executive, but at least the government had a separate board which would scrutinise the prioritising of projects and the recommendations that went before cabinet. In her letter to the Minister for Tourism (Mr Bignell) she outlined her plea that the commission board be kept. She said:

We firmly believe that the board should continue. It has an essential role to play for government and the tourism industry in ensuring that tourism drives economic development for the state more holistically.

She goes on to say:

The advantages of ongoing retention of a commercially orientated and independent skills-based board for the Commission include:

The Commission Board plays a crucial role in challenging the Commission to be innovative in how it inspires international and domestic consumers to view South Australia and ultimately drive demand for our product and experiences.

She later goes on to say:

The Premier heard this directly from stakeholders and industry leaders at the recent TTF event in Adelaide.

Clearly, he was not listening. Then she goes on to say:

The Commission acts in a commercially sensitive environment. It receives/leverages cooperative marketing funds and cooperative investment sponsorship for its events and marketing activities amounting to more than $10 million. This investment could be potentially at risk if investors are not assured there is a suitable corporate structure governance in place at the Commission to manage and protect their investment, particularly given the perceived lack of the corporate sector's appetite to work directly with government.

That comment is concerning in itself but, nevertheless, if it is right, that is even more reason why we should have an independent board. She goes on to say:

Without the board governance structure, the government would risk business investment to leverage current funding and community confidence given the role tourism has been identified to play in South Australia's economic future.

The Board and commercial structure allow the Commission to retain and attract commercially orientated personnel that are solution based and outcome orientated.

The abolition of the Board and the subsequent loss of commercial focus of the Commission would result in the state risking its reputation and the confidence of industry and interstate and national tourism entities as it could be seen as a downgrading of the value and role of tourism in South Australia.

The commercial orientation of what the Commission undertakes and drives is a foundation for the vibrancy in our city and an underlying contributor to the overall positioning and brand of the state. This commercial orientation and thinking also supports investment and growth in this dynamic sector.

In summary, they say: keep the skills-based, commercially oriented board; integrate the functions of the Motor Sport Board to the commission; and reduce the number of board directors on the commission board but retain the skills-based board for the commission to ensure all of the objectives they have outlined in detail in their submission.

I do not always take the submissions by groups trying to protect themselves as necessarily being the arbiter or the threshold basis upon which we should make decisions in this place because, of course, there can clearly be seen that there is some vested interest in doing so. But we have other major stakeholders in this forum saying, 'This is important. Keep this independence, keep a skills-based board.' It does give a level of independence, integrity and transparency to government in making decisions when they start to prioritise major projects.

It ensures that tourism is able to claim, via that process, to have an open and transparent process that can be seen by other people and other organisations that are seeking to have the government make decisions to prioritise their objectives. For example, people in the agricultural industry may say, 'We want to have better roads,' or people in the mining industry may say, 'We want to have ports.' These are areas of priority that, ultimately, governments have to make decisions on. They are big decisions: they are big dollar items.

The tourism industry wants to be able to remain in a credible position of being able to present an independent and thoroughly investigated and supported recommendation to the government. I am very concerned about the government's insistence that this board should go and that it should be taken in-house. It is a big mistake, and we will not support it.

The second area is in relation to the Pastoral Board. I am sure other members who represent parts of South Australia with areas that have had the benefit of having the Pastoral Board which they and their constituents can go to and which is an independent body to make decisions in this area will have a lot more to say on this. The Pastoral Board—for the people who may not be familiar with this—covers a whole area of land in South Australia, probably by far the biggest single tract of pastoral land, which covers our state and occupies mostly the north of the state, our station country. We have an enormous agricultural industry, and sheep feature up until the dog fence and after that it is cattle. Some are nodding here to tell me this.

I think some are in the organic category and pride themselves on producing beef for interstate and export consumption in a big way, as a big income earner for South Australia. In fact, I think they are even so careful about this that they import hay from hundreds of miles away to make sure that their stock is not eating hay that might contaminate or affect their organic status. They are very careful not to use chemicals or certain poisons when they are dealing with dingoes or feral animals.

Mr Knoll: Strong animal welfare standards.

Ms CHAPMAN: They have extremely strong animal welfare standards—thank you very much. They are very conscious of remaining in the remote parts of South Australia, delivering for South Australia, providing a major export for South Australia and making sure that we can proudly say around the world that we make a very good product and, in that case, it obviously has an organic status.

For all their effort, they usually get a better return; I certainly hope that continues. Some of our biosecurity laws, and particularly the management by this state government, do raise some questions from time to time about how they deal with it—the feral dingo problem, for example—and the enormous cost that that puts on our rural people, particularly in the station country, to be able to survive.

I know the member for the West Coast, the member for Flinders, has some pastoral land in his area. I am not quite sure what the historical reason is for that, why beautiful parts of the West Coast are actually still in it, but he will tell us, no doubt. They are, importantly, under the responsibility of the Pastoral Board, and certainly members who cover our Riverland area also have some significant pastoral properties, for which we do not have certificates of title but have lease arrangements which are managed by the Pastoral Board.

Recently, in another area, I asked the Registrar-General for dealing with land in South Australia (Mr Pike) about some amendments on some other legislation, and he wants to keep a proper record of the crown leases in South Australia. To update the management of that in some legislation, we are happy to support some legislation that covered that aspect, but we should not ignore the fact, for the purposes of this exercise, that the people who occupy these properties have paid for the right to occupy them.

They may not have an estate in fee simple; they may not have a certificate of title as I might have for a piece of property in Tusmore in South Australia, but they do pay good money—often a lot of money—to be able to buy property in these regions, and they are undertaking enterprises which, as I say, provide revenue for the state and major industry and employment for the state, and they are serviced by towns for people who also live in those areas.

The Pastoral Board has responsibility to make a number of decisions; one is: what is the level of fee that the landowners should pay for the government structure? Most of the rest of us in South Australia pay rates to a local council. These people are not covered by a local council, but they obviously do need to have some body that sets the fee for the landholders to pay.

So, one important role is to identify what are the costs of operating a pastoral board and what their fee should be, and they set that by recommendation to the minister, and the minister can reject or sign off on that. Obviously, they can do as they wish, I suppose, in the end but at least you have a body from which they are obliged to at least receive the recommendations—and that has worked very well.

They have a very important role in setting stocking rates on properties, for example, to ensure that our pristine environment in what are mostly remote areas of South Australia—certainly, delicate soil environments—where destruction by erosion, wind erosion and the like could severely impede the standard of how environmentally sound these properties are, let alone their capacity then to be able to be productive, from an enterprise point of view, in a rural or tourism opportunity.

In relation to the sheer interruption to the environmental integrity, it is massively at risk unless you have a body which deals with such things as how many introduced species and how many hoof prints can a certain environment safely sustain for the purposes of reaching a balance between providing for an industry and protecting the environment for ecological sustainability as well.

The Pastoral Board has a number of roles and it is a very important role, and the government has decided that it wants to get rid of it and that it is going to take all this in-house. It seems as though, on the briefings I have had on this matter, that the Department of Environment personnel, who obviously have a role in supporting and providing data and information to the Pastoral Board at present, will still do that work and they will give it to the minister and the minister will make the decision.

Again, we have a situation where the transparency of the fees to be set and the rules to be applied will not be transparent, and it will affect, we suggest, the integrity of the supervision and management of a vast tract of South Australia for which there will be no voice or advocacy available without that Pastoral Board.

Others will give advice to the parliament, I am sure, about how effective the Pastoral Board has been and how important it has been in providing their work, recommendations and independence and why they should be retained. I for one have not received any suggestion from even those who are providing a briefing by the government that this board in some has failed or that this board in some way has been deficient in not justifying its continued existence. So from our side of politics that will be opposed.

I now move to the abolition, under the Animal Welfare Act, of the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. The proposal of the government essentially is that they will reform animal ethics committees which currently operate such that they will be established with their members appointed by the relevant licensees rather than the minister. I am not overly familiar with how this currently operates, so I thank those in the department who have provided briefings on this.

At present we, quite rightly, have animal welfare laws in this state to ensure, inter alia, that animals are not used or abused, for example, in testing for product advancement or even for medical purposes, and there are certain ethical standards we insist upon. I cannot remember all the details of these, but I expect they still include things like: ensuring that if an animal is used for a testing procedure, for example with a certain drug that is under trial, there will be minimal imposition of any pain to the animal and they will be humanely put down in circumstances where there is a prolonged incapacity or infirmity of the animal in question. These are all logical things. I do not think anyone would have any issue with that. We need to have certain standards.

Obviously, overlapping that, are all sorts of other rules that we have which, I suppose, touch on the area of morality questions about whether animals used in any testing procedures are likely to be caused to be either destroyed or to develop into something that is unacceptable. An example, which has always been used is that of Molly the sheep, or whatever she was called—Dolly, I think, was the sheep.

Mr Pederick: Dolly.

Ms CHAPMAN: Dolly the sheep. When we had the GM—

Mr Treloar: She was cloned.

Ms CHAPMAN: Dolly was cloned, and we have done a whole lot of cloning legislation here to do with the use of embryo cells for cloning so this is not an unfamiliar topic to the parliament. I am not going to dwell on it, but I make this point: there are a lot of ethical questions about what we use government research money for. That is one threshold question. The second is: in genetic engineering and/or social engineering, what decisions are made when animals are involved. For example, I think it is quite reasonable that it goes through a process with Medvet, which is an entity that has, historically, looked at sheep and inoculations.

I can think of one, for example, at the Waite and Roseworthy campuses (now part of the University of Adelaide) where they used to have a little contraption behind the sheep's bottom and they would collect the faeces of the sheep and test them. The little contraption on the sheep's backside was not seen to be unreasonable or to cause any pain to the sheep, but it was important for looking at the advancement of products for sheep immunisation. We had them running around on Martindale Station in testing arrangements for sheep as carriers of an antidote for snake venom. The production of immunisation material to deal with, I think, rattlesnakes in America was one of the products they were able to develop and sell.

These are all the sorts of things where, obviously, we have to have certain standards about protection. So important is this area that we also ensure, under our current law, that the people who are allowed to even do this research have to have a licence. We also do it for human testing, I might add, so that with drug treatments or medical procedures where there is, potentially at least, a controversial area of research that is going to be undertaken we have certain standards. Historically, the government has established animal ethics committees and licensees through the legislation. The committees and even their composition details have been provided to me on a confidential basis. I am happy to accept that confidential basis as to the composition of the chairs of these committees and those who are currently members of the committees. They play a very important role.

What is concerning to me is that, under this proposed restructure, we are going to have a licensing system which will continue to provide for certain entities to have the right to be able to undertake research and do testing, including on animals, and we are going to have a committee structure which, instead of being comprised of people recommended by the minister as an independent process through the board, is going to move to the licensees themselves nominating the people who are going to sit on these committees. I think that is a recipe for potential disaster.

It is fair to say that the people who are currently licensed (whom the committees sit over and keep an eye on) are largely government departments or educational institutions—obviously like universities as you would expect—but they are also private enterprises and some NGOs. I have been provided with a huge long list of people who are currently licensees which, say, the Wildlife Ethics Committee, currently provides for. However, what we are going to do is ultimately put some of these entities into the structure that is going to have a responsibility to actually carry out the work. I see this as too close and too available to exploitation and will not provide the level of protection that we have currently.

I can tell you how serious this issue is: it is so sensitive that when the government provided, on a confidential basis, the list of the chairs of these committees and the licensees, it did so on the basis that it wanted to ensure that these people were quarantined from lobbying or harassment—to use their words. I do not doubt for one moment that there would be some extremist groups that would always want to be protesting against the use of an ant for the purposes of research. We do not want to have lawful entities unfairly interrupted by people who want to put an extreme view on some of these issues all the time, especially when laws have already been made. These issues have been debated and laws have been made and we have a structure to protect the interests of the vulnerable, including animals, in these circumstances.

However, it worries me that this whole process is already pretty secret. It is not sitting well with me, and certainly not with the opposition, that we have a scenario where we are going to get rid of the board and we will just have these animal ethics committees—I was going to say 'manned', which is not a very modern word—comprised of both men or women who, as good as they may be, have a vested interest. That is another area which we do not agree should be abolished. That must be kept independent and it must be protected, especially in an environment where there is a good deal of secrecy.

Finally, I come to the Health Performance Council. If ever there was a case for arguing why it is important to keep the Health Performance Council alive and operating, you need only go to the debates of the Hon. John Hill, former minister for health, who came to this parliament some years ago and told us how important it was that he restructure the health system, that we have a better system, better enforcement and a new governance, and that we would get rid of all the state boards of hospitals. We would get rid of all the regional boards—well, he actually had sacked all those before we even got the bill. He would get rid of the board of the IMVS and create Pathology SA, and we were going to have this great panacea of health service. What a disaster!

In any event, he came into the parliament and said that he was going to introduce a health care act which would ensure that we had a level of accountability, even for his own department, the health department, and that we were going to have a health performance council and it was going to have a role in doing two very important things: firstly, it would have the power to be able to get information from the department when it needed it and, secondly, it would report to the parliament directly each year in its annual report about what it was doing and what it thought was important.

More importantly, he said that it would deliver a comprehensive review every four years to ensure that the parliament was kept abreast on what was happening with this massive department which had just been corralled in and become a centrally controlled entity under the bureaucracy—the biggest of the state departments. I think we now have well over 1,500 people just in the head office, let alone the tens of thousands of people who are employed in our hospitals, clinics and community services.

So, I say that if ever there was a justification for having a health performance council, in the absence of every other level of governance, independent advocacy, scrutiny or supervision, it is in the words of the Hon. John Hill who presented a bill to the parliament which was supported. Of course, we were not happy on this side of politics that the government had broken its promise to get rid of boards, but we supported the implementation of a health performance council to at least have one little gasp of oxygen in support of keeping transparency in the government. What happened? The government came along, under Premier Weatherill, and said that we were going to review all our boards and get rid of the Health Performance Council. Guess what?

The SPEAKER: Could the member for Bragg not use the Premier's surname for reasons which are so compelling I thought you would obey them.

Ms CHAPMAN: Thank you. The current Premier came along and told the parliament that it was important that we get rid of the Health Performance Council and that it was going under this bill. That is not acceptable to us; I can tell you that is far from acceptable to us. Do you know what else is really adding an absolute insult to this parliament? He is asking this body to vote for the abolition of the Health Performance Council before it has even tabled in the parliament its four-yearly report which has been sitting on the desk of the current Minister for Health since December. By law, he does not have to produce it for another couple of days because of the 16 or 19 or 20-day rule of parliament's sitting post his receipt of it.

In an environment where the government is saying—and the Premier, in particular, who has announced this policy and prosecuted this bill—that we do not need a health performance council, where is their four-yearly report? Why can we not have that tabled here in the parliament as we discuss this bill? How do we know what they say is important for us to consider in the new Transforming Health services which the government is currently undertaking under the current Minister for Health?

How do we know whether in fact the health services we currently have, which have been under the scrutiny of the Health Performance Council and which has reported to the minister and which we cannot even see yet—not even before the closure of discussion and consultation with South Australia when they cut off the oxygen of people having a right to complain about their new Transforming Health, bulldoze the Repat Hospital, slash and burn the QEH, castrate the Modbury Hospital, to do whatever it is doing down at poor old Noarlunga, let alone the poor old country health system.

In the environment or in the envelope of us considering a major piece of health structure, of services and the delivery of cramming in all our emergency departments out of seven big major metropolitan hospitals into three—in the envelope of that environment of discussion, where is the Health Performance Council's report? Sitting on the minister's desk. We need the Health Performance Council. It has reported already in its years of operation to this parliament. The last report was for the period ending 30 June 2014, and that was tabled on 13 November last year. Whether it is abolished or not, it will of course have an obligation to still report for this financial year, or part thereof that it still survives. That report will be tabled, in the general thrust of things, probably by the end of 2015.

I do remember, though, when the country hospital boards and the regional boards of the metropolitan hospitals were all abolished some years ago, that it took some years for us to finally get all the last annual reports of the boards before their demise, because, of course, most of them were sacked before they had a chance to even sign off, so they had to go back and find some of these people to even approve what their reports had presented. This is how ridiculous it is. Anyway, with a bit of luck we will actually get the Health Performance Council's annual report for this current financial year, or part thereof that it exists, possibly at the end of the year.

In the environment when in July last year the Premier was announcing a review of all the boards, you would think that when the Health Performance Council provided its annual report in 2014 it might report to the parliament some justification upon which it might continue to exist and that it may present to the parliament some view itself about whether it had a role that it should continue to play and whether it could justify its continued existence.

We do know that Ms Anne Dunn, as the chairperson of the Health Performance Council, did put a submission to the Minister for Health and Ageing on 14 August last year as the basis upon which they submitted that in the reform process the government should consider the retention of the HPC. They did say, if it is not to be retained, that they recommended that it be provided with a wind-up period sufficient to complete its 2011-14 review report. We now know that that has occurred and it is sitting on the minister's desk. They obviously expressed their disquiet to the minister about what it was doing.

In fact, they reiterated a number of points, particularly the independent expert advice of which the members of the council are comprised and of which they have undertaken the job over the last few years. They also outlined to the minister the achievements they had made. Some of these are set out in detail in annual reports that have already been provided to the parliament, but they do point out that it is South Australia's only external review body of the health system, providing the expert independent monitoring necessary to ensure accountability, transparency and public trust. They also went on to say that there had been some demonstrated positive impacts on the quality of the health system as a result of the recommendations and the work they had done in presenting them.

I would like to summarise some of these. Of course, one was to keep the health advisory councils, an assessment of those and a review of those and some independent advice to the government. They say that in the assessing of data the HPC had revealed that country residents receive less community mental health care, specialised psychiatric care and follow-up after hospital discharge for mental health reasons, including areas of reallocating resources to reduce the burden on hospitals. They were very active in that space.

They claimed that the HPC had found a strong correlation between remoteness and dying in hospital, and that a significant number of South Australians die in hospital due to under recognition of end-stage chronic diseases. These findings led to advice for ways to better meet South Australia's expectations while creating savings.

To important initiatives of work they had undertaken and assessment of the data, they claimed they had provided frank advice on whether the departmental strategies were being implemented as planned; in other words, they were a bit of a watchdog on the promises of the department, the minister's expectation that they would be delivered. They had someone in there checking the minister to make sure that what they had been told by their advisers and the health department was the full picture.

They took credit for (and I do not doubt it) being instrumental in providing a cost-effective advisory service to the Minister for Health on the health system as to quality of service outcomes and cost savings. An example they provided was that in 2013 they outlined that the HPC had identified up to $30 million in savings annually for SA Health through improving end-of-life care. The review was undertaken quickly, but ultimately (which, I might say, was not as quick) we had the end-of-life legislation through here.

There were a lot of other contentious issues associated with advanced care directives and how they might be managed and implemented without, even inadvertently, introducing a situation where people became fearful of euthanasia-type practices, if I can put it as generally as that. The government was careful to make sure of that, I think, as best they could. However the government was advised of critical information about how they might best look at that issue. We do not like to look at end-of-life things as having just a dollar value (like, sort of, bumping them off early so that you save costs for the health system, if I can put as crudely as that). I simply point out, though, that they had an important role in advising the government in that regard.

They have been highly effective and they were undertaking a number of projects that were very important, one of which was to look at Indigenous health in South Australia and how the services in our health structures were operating or failing. They were doing an enormous body of work on that. I am told, independent of the HPC, that some of this work has been picked up by some other agencies. I hope that occurs, because the failure to even record important data in regional and remote South Australia that I have experienced in here first-hand, is shameful, and it has been under the watch of the current Premier, both in his current role but more particularly in his former role. They do not record the addresses, apparently, to identify the level of child abuse on Indigenous lands. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

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