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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-19 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Ambulance Ramping

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (15:10): This opposition is determined to hold the Malinauskas Labor government to account for their election promises in health. Labor and their union allies spent hundreds and thousands of dollars in the campaign to portray the health system in crisis. The campaign was exposed by the independent Election Commissioner as being built on falsehoods. They were elected on a promise of fixing health. They promised that to the people of South Australia and now they must deliver. It concerns me that, in the face of grandiose commitments at the election campaign and the arrogance of this government since, we saw a minister today scrambling for answers.

First and foremost, the Labor government promised to fix ramping. Let there be no doubt about it: there were no caveats, no ifs or buts in the assertions of those opposite, there were no ifs or buts on the election posters that were covering every single Stobie pole uphill and down dale. You could not drive down the main roads of the regions or the cities without seeing this promise. You could not walk into an election booth in a marginal seat without seeing it.

Every single day, the ramping stats and the case studies were handfed to the media and exploited by the Labor leader and his team, but now that the election is over it is radio silence. News of ramping has turned off like a tap. When the Minister for Health was questioned on ABC radio about whether he gets daily ramping figures, he said he gets them monthly. So what he called a crisis before the election campaign only warrants his attention once a month. What arrogance! Once a month is apparently enough for this minister to turn his mind to what he called a crisis. It is a crisis one day and a hobby the next.

How can this Labor government claim to be fixing ramping, fixing what they claimed as a crisis and was a centrepiece of their campaign and not be actively engaged, demanding daily updates on the current situation—at least to inform their own action, if not for public publication. The opposition has called on the government to release daily ramping data to support the Premier's assertion that the government has made headway on their promise to fix it.

South Australians deserve to know, and Labor is hiding ramping data at the exact point when the system is under immense pressure with the flu season upon us. South Australia's flu cases have recently escalated and are now astronomically high, when we compare them with this time last year. Public health experts have already expressed concern about the combined impact of the flu season and COVID and what it will mean for our health system.

The Labor government have still not produced their winter plan on how they intend to cope with hospital demand this winter, with South Australia facing its first full flu season since 2019. It was April 2018 when the minister called on the previous government to release its winter plan and that was pre COVID, so this minister has failed to meet his own deadline. South Australians deserve to know how this Labor government is going to deal with the growing pressure on our hospitals during what will be a very difficult peak winter period.

The minister also demanded in opposition that the previous government tear down what he called an antimedia fence in front of the Royal Adelaide Hospital ambulance base. The minister labelled this fence as an embarrassing attempt to hide this state's largest hospital with a tall, antimedia fence around the Royal Adelaide Hospital to block scrutiny, but now he is in government he has refused to act. He could have had his very own Ronald Reagan moment.

The truth is that this government hate scrutiny. They hate being honest and up-front. They want to hide their failures from South Australia, just like they did for 16 years, and this is rank hypocrisy. South Australians thought they were voting for a government of action, not a government just a few short months in reneging on commitments, full of mealy-mouthed excuses and hiding the truth. On this side of the house, we will keep this government to account, holding them to each and every one of the commitments they made to the people of South Australia, and we are just getting warmed up.

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