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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-03-22 Daily Xml
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Ambulance Ramping

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:20): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier stand by his comments made at the SA Press Club last year on 10 March? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: In a final debate before the 2022 state election, the now Premier said, 'Fixing the ramping crisis is about reducing it dramatically, hopefully down to the 485 per cent level that it was, well low, 485 per cent from where it is now.'

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:20): What the member for Schubert didn't do is read out the rest of that quote—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Colton!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —'to the extent that ambulances start rolling up on time'. This is the critical point we need to understand.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Right. The member for Schubert—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Colton is warned.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The member for Schubert stands up here and reads quotes halfway through without completing them—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —and thinks it's clever. What I would say to the member for Schubert, as I would say to all South Australians, and as I would say to members of the commentariat or members of the public, is we are focused on delivering our election commitment, and our election commitment, as was stated on 10 March in the leaders' debate—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —that the member for Schubert refers to, our election commitment was to South Australians that we would—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton is warned.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —get ambulances rolling up on time. I would like to put in a bit of context about what all this actually means, because it's easy, in all the screaming and the shouting and the wailing that occurs in this place, to forget what we are actually talking about here, because the genesis of the policy that we took to the election, which—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: 'Labor will fix the ramping crisis'.

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —wasn't just a slogan it was actually—and we are committed to fixing the ramping crisis, as the member for Morialta needs to get his head around. What we said at the time wasn't just a slogan. It was actually a considered, thoughtful policy for the biggest increase in health spending that we have seen in a generation—in a generation.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Three hundred additional beds, 300 additional nurses, over 100 additional doctors and 350 additional ambulance officers, and all the supporting infrastructure around that. We make those investments because what we are seeking to do is to impart a far better experience on those people who call 000 in their time of need.

When people call 000, when they see a loved one who has keeled over in pain, when they witness a car accident, or whatever the reason is, they want to do that knowing with confidence that their government is genuinely serious about providing the health system with all the resources they require, so that they can meet what they feel are their obligations to provide high-quality patient care, on time.

This is a difficult area of policy. We have allocated the resources, we have made the necessary investments and we go in with our eyes wide open, how substantial a task we have in front of us, particularly with an ageing population, particularly with a primary healthcare setting—

Mr Cowdrey: Stand by the statistic then. You set it—stand by it!

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —a primary healthcare system that is cratering. We remain committed. We are committed to fixing the ramping crisis, with a very firm view of getting ambulances rolling up on time. That's what I said in the March press conference—

Mr Cowdrey: Would you stand by the statistic or not?

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton is warned for a final time.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —the member for Schubert read. The next time she gets up and reads quotes, can I invite her to read them to their conclusion, so as to not mislead the people of South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Unley!

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