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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) (14:48): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier aware of the Minister for Health's comments on radio this morning, and does he agree with them? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: On FIVEaa radio this morning, the minister said that criticism of Labor's election commitment to fix ramping was, and I quote, 'a storm in a teacup.'

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:48): The health minister is doing an outstanding job. The member for Schubert is quoting a—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Florey, order! The Premier has the call. The Treasurer is called to order. Member for Hartley, order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The member for Schubert is quoting a FIVEaa radio interview, which I understand she did in her earlier question to me. I expeditiously asked my team to furnish me with the full quote that I made to the FIVEaa radio interview that she made reference to earlier—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Yes—and this is an important bit of context, Mr Speaker, because—

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —it turns out that the main—

The SPEAKER: Premier, there's a point of order from the member for Morialta, which I will hear under 134.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98 requires the Premier to answer the substance of the question that was just asked, not to have a second go at answering the question that was asked earlier.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! If the point of order—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Florey is warned, the member for Hartley knows better. If the point of order had been put to me on the basis that there may have been the beginning of some debate, then it might have had force. However, it was directed—

The Hon. B.I. Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: —order, member for Wright!—at something quite separate. In any case, some context is important, and I understand the Premier is providing it. The Premier.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: I think that we have now learnt a key lesson during the course of question time that, when the member for Schubert reads out quotes, she does it rather selectively. The remainder of that quote on that FIVEaa interview was me saying, 'So what happened between the period between 2018 and 2022—

Mrs HURN: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: Premier, there's a point of order which I will—

Ms Savvas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Newland!

Mrs HURN: Section 127: I would take offence at that reflection.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for West Torrens, member for Newland, order!

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! It is unhelpful, member for Schubert, having raised a point of order in relation to personal reflection to then make one yourself. However, the Premier might choose to deal with this expeditiously. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Who knows what the full context of the quote that the member for Schubert was referring to in the FIVEaa interview, but what I can say is this: I will tell you, Mr Speaker—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We are late in question time—

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I will hear the member for Morialta.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Sir, the opposition has great regard for the position of Speaker and, when the Speaker makes a suggestion or a direction, any member of this house is obliged to reflect on that and respond as the Speaker has requested. The Premier, in ignoring you, is getting very close to obstructing the house.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier may choose to withdraw the remark and therefore deal with the issue expeditiously.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: What the Minister for Health and I are in furious agreement about, as I suspect—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The best course would be to withdraw the personal reflection.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Yes, I am more than happy to withdraw the words 'selective quoting'—is that what offended you?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Okay, sure.

The SPEAKER: The Premier has the call.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: What the health minister and I are in furious agreement about is that what is not a storm in a teacup is what matters to people. What matters to people in the state right now is getting our health system in a stronger position to be able to adequately care for people who are in their time of need. There is no greater person in a time of need than someone calling 000.

Of course, what the health minister and I are committed to is making sure that when someone calls 000 they know that the government is doing everything we can to get the ambulance to roll up on time, and that's what we are doing. Of course, to get the ambulance to roll up on time, to maximise the likelihood of that, it is an imperative to reduce ramping. It is an imperative to reduce ramping. If you can't reduce ramping, then your ability to see ambulances roll up on time is substantially hamstrung. But we are already delivering on our election commitment.

I am not just talking about the specifics of the beds and the nurses and the doctors and the ambos (although that is true), I'm actually talking about getting ambulances to roll up on time, because response times have improved as a result—

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —of putting those additional resources in. But here's the thing: we've got a long, long way to go.

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Our ambition, in fact our target, is to get ambulance response times back to 2017 and 2018 levels.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We know that we have already had some progress but there is a long way to go. Our ability to be able to deliver on that target, of course, will be very much—the target that we made clear about over and over again in the lead-up to the election, no matter how much the member for Morialta wails about this, he knows the commitment that was made, that we will fix the ramping crisis.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier has the call.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We acknowledge that there is still a way to go, because we've got more improvement to be realised in ambulance response times to reach our target, and reducing ramping will go a long way to contribute to that ambition.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta will depart under 137A and the member for Newland will join him.

The honourable members for Morialta and Newland having withdrawn from the chamber:

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order for the remainder of question time!

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