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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-06 Daily Xml
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Bills

Supply Bill 2015

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 5 May 2015.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:01): I rise to indicate my support for the Supply Bill presently before the parliament to approve the appropriation of $3.29 billion for the continued operations of government, in particular the salaries of public servants and continued funding of programs pending the consideration and approval of the budget yet to be presented by the government.

The fiscal performance of the current government is clearly woeful. Nevertheless, we understand the responsibility of maintaining the operation of government pending budget approval. What I will say is this: in simple terms, it is of great concern to me that the government continue to be blind to the annual deficit and accumulating state debt.

In the time I have been here in parliament, they have had a continuous clearing sale of just about everything that moves—and there is not much left. Although there is some stock left in the Housing Trust, according to a recent government announcement it is to sell everything within a 10-kilometre region. That will affect my electorate because they will be selling those first—unquestionably a quick, available sale.

They still have the desal plant and some wastewater treatment plants, but I do not doubt for one moment, at the rate the government is going, that they will be up for grabs in due course as well. They have announced they are selling the MAC—a sacred cow some would say, but I would say a well-performing asset—and it is with no justification other than to raid its resources and reserves to prop up the government's inefficiency.

Also for sale is the State Administration Centre. In the CBD, the heart of government, these properties are up for sale. They have sold just about every government building, but now the Education Building and the headquarters for government in State Administration are for sale. And because they have not been able to get a sale, they throw in another sweetener, the Torrens Building, which they promised, back in the original announcement, would not be sold.

Again, the government is desperate: they sold the forests under value and they sold the lotteries commission and they are now getting to the bottom of the barrel. They need to understand that there is not much left. South Australians cannot continue to prop up the irresponsible financial management of this administration.

The state's indicia of economic performance and the great social cost that follows and social dislocation from our unemployment and the fact that we are now top of the ladder for our performance in relation to making it attractive for our young people to stay in South Australia when they are still leaving in droves just confirms how economically stagnant we are.

In economic terms, I think that the only other underperforming jurisdiction, other than South Australia, of course, is the Northern Territory and, given their financial position and minimal population, that is understandable. So, we are top of the pack in leading indicia such as unemployment and bottom of the pack in economic performance. Is it little wonder that we have still anyone in South Australia who is not looking for greener pastures.

The government's announcement in relation to health reform, on the back of complaint about some alleged reduction of financial contribution by the people in Canberra, and taking no accountability themselves, is to attempt to abolish the Health Performance Council. They have finally backtracked on that, but they are still pursing their Transforming Health agenda on the basis that they say that they can justifiably increase our health services in South Australia, yet they want to cram seven emergency departments in our major metropolitan hospitals into three. I think that is scandalous and completely undermines their public commitment to the health and welfare of South Australians.

Their more recent announcement that they would close the Repatriation General Hospital as an acute health services hospital is something the public has been outspoken about and will continue to be. It is a scandalous decision by the government and it is a complete abrogation of responsibility to those who have served our country and to the families who have needed their services in the past and will continue to need their services.

As to infrastructure, notwithstanding the whinging and whining of the government in respect of its alleged poor circumstances with respect to the federal government, the government is doing things with infrastructure which continue to scandalise and undermine its claims of being financially responsible.

The Torrens Junction grade separation of freight and passenger rail, for example, a project which has stagnated and which is inconsistent with the state government's own published plan, will leave us in a circumstance where $232 million of federal money is sitting parked in an account and not being applied. It is just scandalous! On one hand, the Treasurer and the Premier come into this place and repeatedly go on about the federal government. There is money sitting in accounts which, if they got their act together and did their job, would ensure that we had that money applied and, in this case, would address the very dangerous situation we have in South Australia, where our construction sector is desperate for work.

It is critical for South Australia to start putting forward quality projects for that government funding. Every state is in there getting the money. We have an infrastructure Prime Minister and we have Warren Truss out there on a regular basis saying that he is ready to build Australia, yet South Australia is sitting on its hands, sitting back here whinging and not getting those projects ready. Again, it is a scandalous mismanagement and not dealing with the importance of ensuring that we have work for South Australians and opportunity for our young.

I also want to say today, on a particular infrastructure project, how deeply disappointed I was in the government's announcement that they would have an ANZAC walk along Kintore Avenue as our Gallipoli centenary year foundation item. The states had an opportunity to put in to get commonwealth money, put in a bit themselves and to seek, in this case, Adelaide City Council support for that project.

In terms of the 100 Years of ANZAC celebrations, in particular the Gallipoli recognition of the service and sacrifice of men and women in that conflict, we have known about the projects that were to be done to support the celebration of that centenary, yet the government has not even turned the first sod! This is a brick walkway. It is not some great huge construction. It is a $10 million project. You would think that they would at least have had that ready for when we had the significant recognition day on 25 April this year. However, it is still on the drawing board and we are waiting for that to take place.

This is a year of recognition of the contribution that South Australians have made to the Great War, World War I. I would hope some recognition is given by someone in the government (whether it is here in Parliament House or in the walkway) to those who have been members of this parliament who have given service and served in public life, whether they be governors, premiers, members of parliament or those who have held judicial positions. There is all manner of people in leadership roles in South Australia who have made their contributions as well.

Dr Weste, of our library, has provided me with a list of those in our parliament who have served, and I will briefly refer to them. Mr Edward Bagot, MLC from 1938 to 1941, in 1916 embarked Adelaide as a lieutenant in the 1st Australian Wireless Signals Squadron. John Bice, MLC from 1941 to 1959 for the Liberal Country League, enlisted in July 1916. Arthur Seaforth Blackburn, a member in the House of Assembly, is well known to members, I am sure, because of his decoration as a contributor both at Gallipoli and then in France in 1916. He was later a state president of the RSL from 1946 to 1949. He was highly decorated and awarded the VC.

George Fedor Baron Hundt Bockelberg was the member for Eyre for the Liberal Country League from 1956 to 1968 and enlisted in the 9th Light Horse Regiment in February 1915 and served at Gallipoli and the Western Front. Horace Bowden was an ALP member for Gouger from July 1943 to April 1944 and enlisted in 1916. Norman Brookman, MLC from 1941 to 1949, served in France as a gunner with the 11th Brigade Field Artillery. Archie Cameron was the member for Wooroora from 1927 to 1934 for the Country Party and enlisted in the AIF in 1916 and fought on the Western Front.

William Joseph Denny was a member of the House of Assembly for the United Labor Party, the member for West Adelaide from 1900 to 1902 and Adelaide from 1902 to 1933. His descendant Bill Denny, of course, has served in veterans organisations in South Australia. He enlisted in 1915 and was commissioned in 1916 as Second Lieutenant in the 9th Light Horse and was awarded other decoration. Lieutenant Colonel James O'Loghlin, a member of the Labor Party, was involved in SA's volunteer forces from 1883 and enlisted at age 62 in August 1915. I also mention George Yates, MHR for Adelaide from 1914 to 1919 and then again from 1922 to 1931 for the ALP.

I conclude by particularly acknowledging Sir Thomas Playford, whose portrait adorns this chamber. He was a member of this parliament as the member for the seat of Murray from 1933 to 1938 and, when its name changed to Gumeracha, from 1938 to 1968 for the Liberal Party. He enlisted in May 1915 for the 27th Battalion. He landed at ANZAC Cove in September 1915 and served three months there. Then he fought on the Western Front in France and Belgium. He was severely wounded and promoted to Lieutenant. I particularly acknowledge him, but in no way do I suggest that does not recognise those who have otherwise served. However, he was severely injured and, notwithstanding that, returned and made a very substantial contribution.

I will refer to Stewart Cockburn's reference in the chapter titled 'Death's Feast' in Playford: the Benevolent Despot, which he published some years ago. A whole chapter is dedicated to his service. I think it tells us of the character of those who served and, I am proud to say, of those amongst them who have served us here in the parliament on all sides of politics, when he wrote that German messages were 'fired by means of de-fused rifle grenades into the Australian positions', and this is at the time they had arrived in enemy territory:

'Welcome, you brave Australian heroes, [they] said. 'Soon your blood will stain the fields of France. You will find the German dog can bite. Witness Verdun.' It was a taunt full of prophetic, deathly truth.

Playford was to fight with his battalion in slaughter houses like those at Messines, The Somme The Ancre, the Ypres Salient, Passchendaele and Pozieres Ridge. He was to be terribly wounded at Flers, near the end of the last battles of the long campaign on The Somme with their appalling suffering and casualties. Few Australian soldiers saw more action than he did. Few endured the hell of war more stoically. Yet hardly a word in his own handwriting survives to disclose what his own inner feelings and emotions may have been, or to betray what misery or fear he experienced. A few postcards written to his mother survive. According to Sir Walter Crocker, some prayers, perhaps chosen by his mother, were found after his death in his wartime wallet, one of the few mementoes of the war he had bothered to keep. His family say they can now find no trace of these prayers, of which even Lady Playford, on the eve of her own death in 1986, seemed unaware. Of his sensitivity to the ghastliness of all the events he witnessed there can be no doubt. His family and those close friends sometimes watched tears trickle down his cheeks as anniversary occasions recalled to him things he was so characteristically reluctant to speak about.

The contribution that South Australians made who then came back and served in public life and, in particular, in this parliament, does, I think, deserve some acknowledgement.

I would hope the government would consider, in addition to the walk they are doing, that we do something here in the parliament to recognise those who have served and indeed to provide at least the facility to ultimately embrace others who have served in other subsequent conflicts who have also served in the parliament.

I think it would be a fitting tribute to this parliament to ensure that, just as we have recognised women in the parliament, on special occasions we do recognise the sacrifice of those who, like Sir Thomas Playford, who went on to serve over 26 years as a premier of the state, made that contribution and returned really in humility and in silence. Really, only now and in recent decades are we uncovering the extraordinary contribution they made. With that, I endorse the passage of the Supply Bill.

Mr SPEIRS (Bright) (12:17): I stand to make my contribution on today's Supply Bill which is before the house and note that we are asking for $3.291 billion of funding to be released for the state government to be able to spend. I appreciate those periods in the parliamentary calendar when we are able to get out and about in our electorates. We have just had a few weeks of not sitting here, and I have certainly been able to connect with my electorate in a more consistent way than when it is broken by parliamentary sittings.

I have been out and about doing a concerted doorknocking campaign and meeting with as many people and organisations as possible to get a good understanding of what makes them tick and what they want me, as their local representative, to be following up on and to get a better understanding of their ideas and opinions not just of me but also of the state government that is governing South Australia at the moment.

I just want to run through a few issues which I think are on the radar of members of the South Australian community at the moment and which have a clear connection to the appropriation of funds because they are all economic or spending related. These are issues that come up time and time again in my electorate in one form or another, whether that is on the doorstep or through people directly contacting the Bright electorate office.

I want to focus on one issue that quite a few members have spoken on in the last few days, and that is the issue of pensioner concessions. It is a state government responsibility to fund this concession and, as we know, the federal government over the years has provided a contribution towards the provision of concessions in general, and obviously that connects through to the pensioner concession on council rates.

Yesterday, the shadow minister for local government, the member for Goyder, tabled a petition with over 13,000 names calling for the reinstatement of pensioner concessions because there is a huge amount of uncertainty, at both local government administration level and amongst elected members in local government but also, in particular and much more importantly, amongst older and more vulnerable people in our community, people living on fixed incomes who really have to watch the dollar and keep a very strict household budget, and the loss of a concession, which amounts to around $190 per annum on the council rates, is substantial.

I speak to a lot of people in my electorate—and my electorate is a particularly elderly electorate, with a lot more older people living within the boundaries of Bright than the average South Australian electorate—and I speak to a lot of older people whose council rates are actually the biggest single bill they receive in a year. They may own their home freehold so they do not have mortgage payments, and they keep an eye on electricity and water—issues that are rising and keep on rising—but the single biggest bill they receive through the letterbox on an annual basis is their council rates. I think that is something that councils need to be particularly aware of.

There is a role for councils to do better in terms of cutting their cloth to suit the economic times and also looking directly at their rate-setting policies and trying to do a better job with that. I do acknowledge, as someone who used to serve on the City of Marion council, that councils can do a lot better in this area to provide rate relief just by doing business better and avoiding duplication with other tiers of government—something that I think happens all too often in local government. I am quite happy to criticise local government and to actually say that they have a role here in cost of living and affordability as well.

I am quite encouraged to see some South Australian councils start to wake up to that, and I see my own area, the City of Marion, producing a historic rate projection on which to develop this year's budget. A budgeted rate rise of 2.9 per cent is what they are going to develop the budget on this year, and that is the lowest it has been for many years. As someone who continually tried to fight for lower rates when I was on council and never had the numbers to make that happen, I am quite happy to see it happening now because I think the City of Marion's 5 per cent average rate rise was not sustainable in the local community and certainly impacted on household budgets.

I am also pleased to see the number 3 in front of the City of Holdfast Bay's annual rate rise: it looks like it will come in at about 3.8 per cent. Councils do seem to be rising to the challenge to cut their cloth according to economic situations and recognising that there are challenges facing the South Australian community. I also note that Adelaide City Council is going to have what essentially seems to be a rate freeze, and also I saw in the media that the Norwood, Payneham and St Peter's council's rate rise will be around about 1.8 per cent. I think that is good to see and we need more of that.

In reflecting on the situation with local government revenue and rates, I have to make comment on this situation of pensioner concessions which has become, in my view, a really cynical political game being exploited by the state Labor government at the moment, creating uncertainty and playing to the politics of fear, which is the worst type of governance that any government can follow.

It is very disappointing that the federal government has administered a cut to the concession funding. I am the first one to say that I am disappointed in that, but, at the same time, that cut only amounts to 10 per cent of the entire pensioner concession, so how can the flow-through effect of this be the entire removal of the pensioner concession, which amounts to around $190? The federal government's cut has been used as a trigger by this state government to remove that entire concession, stripping pensioners of $190 of rate relief. This comes off the household costs of some of our most vulnerable citizens, those who have to rely on fixed incomes, and often low fixed incomes.

If the federal government's reduction on funding was the real reason for the state government's decision, a $19 cut would be flagged, not the loss of the full concession. It is clear that after years of financial mismanagement, this state Labor government is grasping at straws, and I cannot believe that they can do so with straight faces while attacking the most vulnerable people in our community.

Another issue that I want to touch on briefly, an area where perhaps we are not directing enough funding from the money that is being appropriated through the Supply Bill, is child protection. During our time away from parliament, there has been the handing down of the Coroner's report into the death of Chloe Valentine. I took some time to read that and to look at the various contributions in our state's media about that. I can really say from the bottom of my heart that I was deeply affected by what I read in the Coroner's report and what I read in the media about what happened to Chloe Valentine.

In my view, it is an entire failure of government if you cannot keep the most vulnerable people in society safe from the sort of abuse that that young girl suffered. It is an absolute tragedy that that occurred under the watch of Families SA and there is no doubt—and this is not my opinion; this is the opinion of our state's Coroner—that there are huge failings within the child protection bureaucracy.

I find it quite startling that Tony Harrison has remained in his position as chief executive of that agency, and I am deeply troubled about his ability to drive culture change when the Coroner's report has said quite clearly that he was sucked into the bad culture present in Families SA rather than being a change for good in that culture. I find that devastating; I think the Coroner's views were devastating, and there is no doubt that this government must see it as a state crisis and look to take immediate action.

I am pleased that legislation will be brought before the house in the coming days to ramp up some of the legislative responses around this, but while that will help, the heart of this problem is a deeply broken culture within Families SA, and our child protection system in this state is woeful, to say the least. It is heartbreaking, and anyone in an elected position within South Australia needs to think deeply about what our role is in terms of keeping the most vulnerable people in the society safe.

There are many people working within Families SA who are trying their very best. It is an incredibly challenging environment. I have had a child protection issue presented to my electorate office in the last couple of weeks and the situation that has unfolded in this young person's life is such a tragedy. You are left asking yourself how there could be such brokenness in our world that results not only in young people becoming the victims of sexual abuse but actually their lives being pulled into the most awful uncontrolled circumstances. These people are just children—12, 13, 14 year olds—involved in the most depraved sexual actions. I was reading through this scenario that was brought to my electorate office, and again it was just heartbreaking.

I have recently been speaking to a couple of friends who work within the child protection system and they told me firsthand stories that not only is what occurred with Chloe Valentine a daily part of their lives and a daily challenge that they face, but it is also getting worse, not better. Their view was that one of the reasons it is getting worse is because of the epidemic of drug addiction, particularly ice, gripping the most vulnerable elements of our community and the desperation that is associated with the need for that drug leading young people (these are children) into doing pretty horrific things.

During the break, the member for Hartley had an article published in support of the federal government's taskforce looking at the ice epidemic in Australia. He suggested that South Australia needs to look very seriously at what the situation is in our suburbs and towns with regard to ice and the damage it is doing. I would support the member for Hartley's position and implore the government to not only look at the child protection system in terms of what needs to be reformed, but what are the causes that are resulting in more people entering the system, and does ice and other drugs actually have an impact there? From what I am hearing from Families SA staff, it certainly does. It is a massive problem facing our state, a massive social problem and one that we really need to get some policy solutions to.

I want to move on to another matter in my electorate at the moment, and that is the closure of the Hallett Cove Police Station, one of several shopfront police stations which are being proposed to be closed by this government, something that was not revealed during the election campaign in 2014. The government continues to put forward the position that it is tough on crime, it wants to be tough on crime, but we now have this announcement, that was not brought up during the election, that eight suburban police stations are to close.

Hallett Cove is an area which has had real difficulties with crime in the past, particularly crime associated with hoon driving, petty vandalism and graffiti. In recent years, the suburb has, however, matured in many ways, but local residents have taken considerable comfort from the fact that a police station was opened in Hallett Cove in 2008. Just 1.5 cycles in the electoral calendar later it is to be closed.

The government made a huge deal in the 2006 election campaign when it won the seat of Bright from the Liberal Party that it would commit to delivering a police station in Hallett Cove if elected in 2006. It was elected in 2006, my predecessor became the member of parliament for Hallett Cove and subsequently that new police station was opened. I remember there was a lot of glossy material that went out into electorate. I remember the police minister at the time, Michael Wright, appeared with Chloe Fox on many of those pieces of material, smiling at the official opening of the new police station and taking much pride in being able to deliver that election promise. The police station was opened in 2008 and seven years later the shutters are going to be pulled down on it.

We have been told that the presence of these shopfront community police stations have questionable crime prevention outcomes. While that might be the case in some regards, I think in Hallett Cove we have a large suburb, which when you combine in with Trott Park and Sheidow Park (represented ably by the member for Mitchell) we have a community of 24,000 people. That is the size of the City of Mount Gambier. It sits up there on the plateau above the City of Marion by itself.

It is essentially a regional town within the metropolitan area and served with a service centre around the Hallett Cove Shopping Centre, where there is a growing community precinct. We have the Cove Civic Centre opening in a few weeks time, we have several churches and quite a few NGOs and government services based there as well. So, we have this stand-alone community of 23,000 to 24,000 people at Hallett Cove and it is quite a distance from the alternative police stations. Sturt is about eight kilometres or so to the north and Christies Beach is about the same distance to the south.

Those two police stations—Sturt and Christies Beach—are not easily accessible by Hallett Cove residents, and the peace of mind that was provided by having the police station at Hallett Cove was substantial. I have been undertaking a survey of the community, trying to build up evidence in terms of what people think of this police station. Overwhelmingly, people want it to stay but, in particular, it is the peace of mind, the perception that it gives them. If we are to lose the police station, will we be provided with ongoing patrols in the area?

The police commissioner says that the police stations trap police officers in one location and do not enable them to get out into the community to make patrols. If the police station does close, are we going to get a commitment to ongoing patrols around what is essentially in the metropolitan area quite a large and isolated community?

I have written to the police commissioner, Gary Burns, seeking an understanding of crime prevention strategies that will be rolled out around the closure of these police stations, what measures will be taken to give the community confidence that their safety and crime prevention will be a top priority on an ongoing basis with South Australia Police and the state government, and particularly how will we build confidence in the community on an ongoing basis so they can be confident that they are safe despite the police station being closed. I do not want to revert to the days when hoon driving, graffiti vandalism and petty crime was commonplace in Hallett Cove, and I will be fighting hard to ensure that some form of police presence is maintained in that area. I think prevention is much better than cure.

When the police station was opened in 2006, there was much rhetoric from the state Labor government and the previous member that this was a preventative strategy, that it was going to create a police station presence in that community. I am going to be fighting very hard in my communications with the Minister for Police and the police commissioner to ensure that Hallett Cove—and no doubt I will be working alongside the member for Mitchell—and the related communities of Trott Park and Sheidow Park have confidence in security and that crime reduction and crime prevention is maintained, because prevention is better than cure and a police presence in our community is vitally important.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (12:37): I rise to support the Supply Bill. I would like to focus a lot of my discussion today on our health system in South Australia and go through, I guess, the complete picture of health in this state, from prevention right through to hospital care. The reason I want to talk about health in particular is that it has obviously been a very controversial issue in recent times and probably over most of the last century. It is also the largest part of state expenditure that this Supply Bill is dealing with. We spend something like $5.2 billion on our health budget every year, and this Supply Bill, which many members have said is quite a large amount of money, is only $3.3 billion. So, it does not even cover the whole health budget by itself. It is a really substantial area of government expenditure and it is becoming larger and larger every year as a percentage of every tax dollar that we collect in South Australia.

The projections are quite scary. If the growth rate of 8 or 9 per cent in health expenditure every year continues, versus a 4 or 5 per cent increase in tax revenue, within the next 20 years the whole state budget is going to be taken up by health expenditure. We will not have an education system, we will not have an environment department and we will not have social services, because every dollar we receive will have to be spent on health. That is obviously a huge pressure for all other government departments and agencies. I note through the budget process every year that all agencies need to put up budget savings, and a lot of that money inevitably always needs to be spent on the health system.

We talk about the health system, and it is arguable as to whether Australia really has a system as such compared to some of the international systems where things work together much more seamlessly. We can look at countries like the United Kingdom, with its National Health Service that covers the whole breadth of health within the one system, or even in America where there are some private systems such as Kaiser Permanente which covers everything from preventative health through to chemists and doctors, through to hospital care, all within a closed system.

We, of course, do not have that in Australia or South Australia. We have a huge split across hospitals, primary health care, preventative care, aged care, respite care, ambulance care, private hospitals, private health insurance—they are all providing different services with different governance systems, with different funding sources, with different workforce issues and with different model of care changes. As a patient you need to use those services seamlessly. You need them to be available when and where you need them. You need them to provide you with the right service in the right place at the right time.

However, from an administration or government perspective it is very hard to coordinate all those different services together to provide the care that we want for patients. Then combine that with all the challenges that we see externally heading onto the health system, particularly first and foremost the ageing of our population. That is something that I talked about in my maiden speech and it is always going to be a focus for me as a member in this place.

I think one of the greatest challenges that we face as a state is how we are going to continue to provide services at the level that we expect for people in the baby boomer population—which is going to be a huge proportion of people in coming years. The number of people over 65 is going to balloon but also the number of people over 80 and the number of people over 100 is going to balloon over the next 20 years. That is going to increase the demand that all of our health system faces, which is going to increase the amount of money that we need to spend on it but also the supply will be constrained in terms of the amount of workforce that we will be able to find to provide those services.

There is also an increasing burden of chronic disease that we have seen in Australia which impacts as well; there is increasing demand for treatments; and there is an increasing demand for medical and nursing staff. Technology in health care is becoming more and more expensive. Therefore, as well as health inflation rising we are also seeing the demand and utilisation of the health system rising.

Sometimes you hear people ask, 'Why is the health budget going up by such a large amount; shouldn't it just be going up at the inflation rate?' It is not quite like the inflation rates that you see impacting on grocery prices; it is more like if you are going to your supermarket, the inflation rate is going up but you are also purchasing more at the same time so you are getting a double effect on the increase of your bill every week. That is what the health system is facing.

In South Australia we have already seen something like a 90 per cent increase in our health budget over the past 13 years, since 2002, which is a massive increase and certainly no other area of government expenditure has seen that sort of increase. It is very questionable as to how sustainable that is.

Ultimately, from our health system, we want to make sure that people stay healthy for the longest period of time and that, when you get sick or injured, we want people to be able to be treated quickly, safely and close to where they are and in an environment that is safe and is going to make them better. However, to do that requires work across the whole spectrum of services. Right from having a preventative health system which, where it works—and there are a number of areas where it has been demonstrated to work very well, such as tobacco control—we have seen it as the most effective and the most efficient way of improving the lives and healthcare outcomes for people.

Then there is primary health care where it can be very effective in improving the coordination of care and keeping people healthy and out of hospital for longer. However, that can lengthen people's lives, though, which can ultimately be more expensive; but surely that is an outcome that we want to see.

Aged care has transformed from merely being a housing focus. In aged care homes there used to be people who would be able to park outside their home in the aged care centre because they were still well enough to drive a car while they were in aged care. That obviously is not the case now; the focus now in aged care is on nursing care and providing, in particular, care for people with dementia—that has become a much-increased focus.

Then, of course, there is hospital care—particularly public hospitals, which are always our focus. It will always be the case that the most complex care is provided there, and it is the backstop for our system. But, in Australia we cannot ignore the private health system as well; they have a very important role to play in our mixed system—particularly private health insurance and private hospitals.

Private health insurance is a bit limited in terms of what services it can actually provide, and therefore there is a very heavy reliance on the publicly funded aspects of the health system (particularly Medicare and hospitals) as well as out-of-pocket expenses. Most people who use the private health system, even if they are heavily insured, still end up paying quite a lot out of pocket. Also, the private hospital sector is very important, but that has arguably been much smaller in South Australia than in other states.

Here in this parliament we have limited control over that continuity of care in South Australia. We have limited control over the funding that is provided, the standards that are imposed and the governance for each part of those systems. Therefore, being in charge of that system, it is very difficult to control all those moving parts, particularly with so many external factors impacting.

The greatest progress towards sorting this out in recent years has been the long process of national health reform that occurred over the previous decade. While that has not been perfect, it did make some significant differences in, first and foremost, creating a proper incentive for the commonwealth to take action. Up until that point in time, we saw a system where the commonwealth would only have to increase their payments to hospitals by a few per cent a year, which accounted for the inflation that we saw, but not the growth in demand that we saw.

That meant that the commonwealth could wipe its hands of a lot of the issues in terms of the demand of hospitals, and so they did not have the incentive to put back into primary health care or to put back into preventative health care. What we saw in national health reform was a proper incentive for the commonwealth to take action and they, for the first time, committed to funding 50 per cent of new hospital costs on the system. So, they were going to be an equal partner in that growth funding that was needed. Plus, there was going to be activity-based funding directly to local hospital networks, which would create the incentive for those systems—those local hospital networks—to operate as efficiently as possible on a national basis, and to compete against each other to make sure that they were the most efficient and that they could reap the rewards of the efficiency that they had.

There were also reward payments to states for good governance and for good outcomes for patients, such as faster treatment in emergency departments and shorter waiting lists for elective surgery. It also supported big investments in prevention and primary health care. Now, very unfortunately, all of that has been completely torn up. I would like to think that everybody is very disappointed in this outcome in South Australia and in the South Australian parliament. Really, for our state, this has meant that the commonwealth is no longer a partner in trying to fix these issues that the health system has.

It is something like a $50 billion over 10 years to public hospitals. But, even more than that cut in terms of dollar amounts, what it also means is that the commonwealth can wipe their hands of the public hospital system and wipe their hands of having any impact in trying to fix it. This means that they do not have the incentive to invest in primary health care, they do not have the incentive to invest in preventative health care, or in aged care—all those things that are going to help reduce the costs in public hospitals. For all states and territories we will be left carrying the burden of the impact that that will have on public hospitals. They want to return to that system where there were increases of slightly more than CPI for public hospital funding, with no increase for growth funding that is desperately needed.

There have been words from the Treasurer in recent days saying, 'Well, public hospitals are state responsibilities, and they have to manage them.' It has never been the case that the commonwealth has completely wiped their hands of public hospitals until those comments. What we have seen is that any idea of a partnership on public hospitals has been completely thrown out of the water, and there is no federal plan on how to address the demands that our public hospitals are facing.

That is what we have seen nationally. Obviously, in South Australia, we have to bear the brunt of whatever those national funding issues are. But, on a more micro level, we have been doing a lot of work since 2002 on reforming our health system in South Australia as best we can, putting aside those important federal issues.

When we came to government, we established the Generational Health Review, which set out a very clear set of principles looking at what health care in South Australia should have. It established very early on that we needed to pivot away from acute hospital care to primary and preventative care to try to reduce that demand on hospitals as the population ages, which I think has been consistent, that we have been trying to address that over that period of time. That, of course, now impacts upon the federal reforms, where trying to segment—states look after hospitals and commonwealth looks after primary—makes that very hard for the state government to do.

In 2007, we brought in the state Health Care Plan 2007-2016, and that was perhaps, up until that point at least, the most significant health reform plan that we have had in this state, of course creating the new Royal Adelaide Hospital to make a much more efficient public hospital system in South Australia, but also opening up a network of GP Plus centres around the state to ensure that we have more primary care and more preventative care to help people stay healthier and keep out of hospital.

Now, we are onto the next step, which is looking at the Transforming Health process. Of course, this review came about from looking at those federal budget cuts and how we are going to be able to help as a health system in managing that, but as time has progressed it has more and more been looking at the data of how our hospitals are not performing very well on a national basis at the moment when you look at things like length of stay in hospitals. When you look at some of the safety and quality measures of whether patients are getting good outcomes in particularly our metropolitan hospitals, the data clearly shows that we have a lot of work to do to improve, and that is what the whole plan has been about: trying to improve those patient outcomes.

There have obviously been some very controversial aspects of that plan. First and foremost, in my electorate the very controversial aspect we had in the draft plan was about Noarlunga Hospital. For a long time Noarlunga Hospital has worked in partnership with Flinders Medical Centre, and I think people very clearly understood the relationship: that Flinders is the large tertiary-level hospital in the south and Noarlunga works in partnership in that. But distance is very important in the south, and for people in my electorate, particularly down in Aldinga, it is a very long way to get up to Flinders if you need treatment. Because of that, some of the proposals in the draft plan caused a lot of concern. Particularly, the issues which caused concern were closing the emergency department and establishing an emergency walk-in clinic and stopping any ambulances coming to the hospital.

When the plan was released, I held a forum in my electorate which was very well attended, and the minister was kind enough to come down and address people and answer their questions about the plan. I also spent a lot of time doorknocking and visiting shopping centres to talk to people about the plan, but also met with a lot of the doctors and nurses. I did this together with the member for Reynell and the member for Fisher. We worked very well as a team of MPs down in the south to look at some of the issues in that draft, and the conclusion we came to was that there were some changes that we believed needed to be made to improve the plan, particularly based on the feedback that we had from the emergency department doctors and nurses at Noarlunga.

The recommendations that we put in to the Transforming Health consultation were that we should:

keep the emergency department on its current site;

keep the name as an emergency department (either a community or a local department) and not call it a clinic;

allow ambulances to still go to Noarlunga when it is safe to do so;

keep the emergency department open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with medical and nursing cover available;

keep the same facilities, in particular things like resuscitation rooms, available, as is the case now; and

improve facilities for children in the emergency department.

Similar suggestions were not just put by us but were put by those doctors and nurses and by many members of the community into the formal consultation process. I think it is an absolute credit to the Minister for Health that he has listened and acted on those concerns and, in the next iteration of Transforming Health, announced changes to what the plan for Noarlunga Hospital was going to be, which picked up all of the concerns that myself and the members for Fisher and Reynell addressed in our plan. Transforming Health is going to result in some important benefits for Noarlunga, such as more day surgery happening at the hospital, which will mean less travel that people will have to do elsewhere.

Of course, there is a lot of debate about the Repatriation General Hospital. I probably do not have enough time to go through that in its entirety, but I think it is important to note that the care of veterans has changed a lot over time. My grandfather, when he returned from New Guinea in the Second World War, worked at the Repat caring for other veterans. That was a time when veterans went to the Repat and it was the only hospital they went to, and we had a significant number of veterans who would go there.

Nowadays, the number of patients at the Repat who are veterans has gone down from 100 per cent back then to something like 7 per cent today, which is a significant difference, but it makes complete sense. When you look at the fact that particularly veterans who are over 70 mostly have access to a DVA gold card, which means that if they need elective surgery they can get it in any private hospital for free across Australia, why would you not do that?

However, there are important aspects of the Repat that do provide important services for veterans. They include rehabilitation services and post-traumatic stress disorder services in Ward 17. Importantly, in the government's plan we are going to build new facilities for those services, with a focus on veterans, to make sure that those services still continue with the same teams in brand-new facilities.

These health reforms have seen unbelievable levels of scaremongering in the community. Just the other day, we had a forum with Channel 7 at Morphett Vale and heard some more scaremongering there, including claims that people from Aldinga and Sellicks would have to go to Modbury to get their eye surgery. Claims like that are completely false. Procedures like eye surgery will still be available at Flinders Medical Centre, as they are now. However, it highlights that it is very easy for those sorts of scare claims to get around the community, and it is a lot harder to correct them than it is to start them.

We will be doing all we can to make sure that people know the absolute facts about these plans, but we would also like to hear from those people, including the opposition, who criticise the plans. I would like to hear from them what their plans are. Do they have any policies? We did not hear a policy from them at the election. We did not hear a consultation paper being delivered in the Transforming Health paper, so I want to hear what their plans are now that we are in this stage.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:58): I also rise to speak today in support of the Supply Bill and particularly to speak today about Collective Impact and the launch of Together in the South's work last Wednesday 29 April. The launch of this work followed months and months of collective planning by a collective group of leaders from the southern community, community organisations, the City of Onkaparinga, Flinders University and government representatives in our southern community.

Together SA is a South Australian organisation pioneering Collective Impact in South Australia. Collective Impact is an extremely successful results-driven model of social change that brings together large sections of the community, business and government to work together in a new and focused way to achieve lasting and effective results with and for people on difficult and urgent social issues. A key part of the work is that it is place-based and absolutely puts people at the centre of the work in a way which engages and empowers them and develops their leadership.

Successful Collective Impact approaches utilise certain elements, two of which I will talk about today; the first is the collaborative development of a common agenda or shared vision for social change. Typically, the community will have a shared understanding of the specific problem or problems they wish to solve and will work together with all sectors to devise shared strategies for change. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

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