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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-26 Daily Xml
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Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (11:32): I move:

That this house condemns the Malinauskas government for failing to fix ramping.

I rise today to speak on this very important motion, condemning the government for failing to fix ramping and the ramping crisis. We know that politics is built on trust and trust for the electorate that promises made are promises kept. At the end of the day, if we cannot keep the promises that we make, then what are we doing? We know it is the cornerstone of a thriving democracy.

At the last election this Labor government made a very, very clear promise to the people of South Australia; we saw it on the corflutes. This campaign erupted about six weeks out. It was a promise that was plastered on our Stobie poles. It was in letterboxes. It was on street corners. It was on our TVs, on our phones and on the radio. It was a promise made time and time again in speeches, at press conferences, in debates, whatever it was. It was a promise by this now Premier and his team that they would fix this ramping crisis.

Since that time the reality is that it has been anything but a promise kept. In fact, since this promise was made and Labor was elected, we have now seen not one, not two, not five, not 10, but 41 months of the worst ramping in South Australia's history. This is not just a broken promise but an astronomical failure: over 160,000 hours stuck outside our hospitals, on the ramp, since Labor was elected, the equivalent of something like 18 years I am told.

How can South Australians trust a government that has spectacularly misled the people of South Australia and failed to deliver on what was their key election commitment? Why will the Premier not apologise to the people of South Australia for this crisis? Has he taken responsibility for it? No, he has not. Has he admitted that his government has not fixed it? No, he has not. In fact, they continue to do quite the opposite.

Yesterday in parliament, we gave him every opportunity to talk about this. When asked if he broke the promise to South Australians on fixing ramping, all he had to say was something like, 'Well, it's better than last month.' The last time I checked that is not what the corflutes said, not what they said at all. What a cop-out. What a cop-out to the South Australians who spent thousands of hours being ramped at our hospitals last month and the 40 months before that.

To give the house context, last month's ramping figures were actually well over 2,000 hours worse than the last full month of the former Liberal government and worse than any single month under the Liberals—any month that we were in power—and, of course, also in the middle of a global pandemic for much of that time.

South Australians expect a level of integrity and they expect a level of truth from their politicians. We know that. What they do not want is the spin and the PR—they want substance. They do not want people to talk down to and gaslight the people of South Australia. They do not want people to talk down the severity of this ramping crisis. We have seen along the way residents, such as one in my own electorate, who have passed away waiting to get the care that they deserve.

South Australians are sick of the taxpayer-funded ads, this Orwellian PR machine, saying things such as they will build a bigger health system, flyers that they are getting in their letterboxes, that actually are not addressing and are not fixing the core part of the problem. South Australians want solutions. They want results. They want to know that if their children, their parents or their grandparents go to hospital, they will receive the high level of care they deserve. What they do not need or want is a glossy brochure telling them about how great their healthcare system is when the reality is that is just not the case.

Time and time again, this government has said one thing but actually delivered another: whether it is their promise to fix ramping or whether it is their promise to build a hydrogen power plant to reduce power prices. It is clear that this government has failed to deliver the vital services that South Australians rely on to keep them healthy and to keep them safe, and they have failed to keep an important promise that they made. So why should the people of South Australia believe anything that Labor promises in the lead-up to the next election?

I urge the Premier to apologise to the people of South Australia for this broken promise because we have now seen 41 months of the worst ramping results in South Australia's history. Do you know what is also galling? Every time that the ramping results are delivered, this Premier goes missing in action. Usually it is on a Friday afternoon and the Premier is just unavailable. Such is the courage of this Premier. He cannot even front up to admit that he has failed to deliver on this promise. What does he do? He sends out his disciple, the Minister for Health, to deliver the bad news that again they have failed to deliver on their ramping crisis.

What he should do is apologise to the thousands of South Australians who are left for hours on our hospital ramps and he should apologise to the entire state for the promise he has broken. Politics is built on trust and it is about time that this government starts to repair the trust that is broken with South Australians.

I have been out with my good friend, the member for Schubert, shadow minister for health, not only critiquing the government but we have also been out every single day since the weekend, every single day, coming up with a positive alternative. A new Liberal government, if given the opportunity in March next year, will build not only a bigger healthcare system but a better healthcare system. We also have a plan to do it.

We have a plan to do it because we know that this Labor government has delivered 41 of the worst months of ramping in South Australia's history. We have seen that elective surgery waitlists continue to be out of control. We have heard recently that people coming from the country at great expense—both emotional trauma and also financial expense—are having their surgeries cancelled time and time again, which is absolutely outrageous. We have seen that emergency departments are struggling to cope, despite the government's core promise. They have not delivered on their core promise to fix it.

SA Health has acknowledged that there are also workforce shortages right across the system. We have a plan to address it and fix it. We know South Australia is experiencing a shortfall in the healthcare workforce, and we have announced several packages in the last week to deliver real and competitive attraction and retention benefits to help grow the healthcare system. Today, we have been able to stand up with the Royal Australian College of GPs. During the week, we also stood up with the head of the ANMF. They understand that our health workforce needs to grow into the future. They understand that we need to value and support people such as our experienced nurses, and that we need more doctors here. We want to deliver a better health system here for South Australians, but to do that we need a strong workforce pipeline.

We have also announced several other policies, which we will continue to remind South Australians of in the lead-up to the election. We are not only holding this arrogant, out-of-touch government to account but we are doing the work to put forward our positive plan when it comes to health.

As the member for Schubert and I announced a while back, when it comes to our pledge in terms of GPs after hours, we have said that we will green-light a GP after-hours increased access trial. We have committed that up to 80 GP practices could apply to receive a grant of up to $150,000 per practice to meet the additional costs of operating after hours, such as wages, on-call allowances and facility costs. We know that some families at the moment would do anything to get in and see their GP, but sometimes that is not able to be done, so we want to address that. We want to support GP clinics. We want to support them to extend their opening hours during the week and also to open on Sundays.

Then, of course, there is the GP payroll tax grab. We will reverse this government's decision to penalise GPs, because we know that it has had a huge impact on the number of GPs that practices can employ, and one way or another those costs get passed on in the form of increased costs to patients.

Whether it is in relation to the nurse and midwife recruitment scholarship program we have announced this week, the retention and re-entry bonuses for nurses and midwives we have announced this week, the relocation payments we have pledged this week, or the plan to grow our GP workforce that we announced today, we will continue to advocate for a better healthcare system—not just a bigger healthcare system—to ensure that the growing health needs of South Australians are met by a growing health workforce.

We put that policy package out. We have done the work. We have been busy in opposition. While those opposite want to chase vanity projects, we are doing the work. We are doing the work as His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. We have announced our packages to do several things, such as the scholarship program; the retention bonuses; the incentives to return, for those who are able; the international attraction grant that we announced today; and making existing payments for interstate and overseas health professionals relocating to SA, but also making sure they get those reimbursements up-front. If you are a young person and you want to do the right thing and you want to play your part and you especially want to go into a regional area or a remote area—we have some of the most remote parts of our country—you have to be paid to do that.

At this time, like never before, there is a race on for the best and brightest minds. We are competing with all the different states and territories. We are competing with overseas. But if you have a government that continues to put vanity before results and that continues to waste money before allocating it properly and professionally, then you end up with the types of things that we see at the moment. They are really big on the promises. They are really good at making the promises but they are not so good at keeping them. We have seen that with respect to cost of living, we have seen that with respect to housing and we are seeing that with respect to ramping.

In summing up, we will continue to grow our workforce and we will continue to hold this government to account for their main policy commitment. In spite of them saying that they would fix the ramping crisis, we know that they have not fixed the ramping crisis. They have gone on to deliver the 41 worst months of ramping in South Australia's history. We all know what they said at the last election. They purported that people should vote a certain way as if their life depended on it—how disgusting to whip fear into the community. We were all there. For those of us who survived, we will remind people of how they were lied to, how they were misled and how this government cannot be rewarded for lying to the people of South Australia. I support this motion.

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (11:46): I rise to indicate that—shock horror—the government will not be supporting this motion. Once again, the Liberal Party has come into this place seeking to condemn a government that is doing the serious structural work required to fix the health system that those opposite left in crisis. Let us be very clear: the ramping crisis did not begin in March 2022.

Members interjecting:

Ms CLANCY: No, that is when South Australians sent a clear message for a serious, grown-up government that would actually do—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left will listen in silence, as the Leader of the Opposition was afforded when he spoke.

Ms CLANCY: Children. No, that is when South Australians sent a clear message for a serious, grown-up government that would actually do the work, not swan about with meaningless one-sentence motions. When we came to government the situation was dire. Priority 2 ambulance response times were just 31 per cent, which is less than one in three lights-and-sirens ambulances arriving on time. For the most urgent, life-or-death priority 1 cases—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

Ms CLANCY: I gave your leader silence. I would appreciate the same respect, member for Chaffey.

Mr Whetstone: Concentrate, just concentrate.

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey can leave the chamber for 10 minutes. I asked for silence and you continue to interject.

The honourable member for Chaffey having withdrawn from the chamber:

Ms CLANCY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. For the most urgent life-or-death priority 1 cases the figure was 47 per cent, meaning less than half of the most critical call-outs reached patients when they needed them. We were left to rebuild a system at breaking point. While we do have a long way to go, the work is paying off.

As of October this year, priority 1 response times have improved to 67 per cent and priority 2 to 61 per cent, and they continue to trend upward. This means that people are getting medical treatment faster. At the election we promised 300 extra beds. We are now on track to deliver more than 600 new beds—double what we committed to. This includes more than 130 new mental health beds, many of them opening recently or in coming months; a $498 million expansion across Flinders Medical Centre in the nearby electorate of Davenport, as well as in my electorate at the Repat; and also additional beds across The QEH, Lyell McEwin, Modbury and Noarlunga. We reversed the Liberals' sale of Hampstead and are establishing a new 70-bed complex care facility. There are also major expansions in Gawler, Victor Harbor, Mount Gambier, Keith, Whyalla and Port Pirie.

My community has been incredibly impressed and happy with the new Edwardstown Ambulance Station, located at the Repat. This is just one of the 24 new, upgraded or rebuilt ambulance stations we are delivering, in addition to a brand-new SAAS operations centre. Importantly, we have smashed our workforce targets. Since 2022, we have hired more than 2,800 extra health workers above attrition. That is more than 1,460 nurses, over 640 doctors, over 300 allied health workers and over 300 additional paramedics on the road. We have expanded alternative care pathways: SA Health Urgent Care Hubs at the Repat, The QEH and Lyell McEwin; greater support through the SA Virtual Care Service; and a new dedicated State Health Coordination Centre within the SAAS HQ.

We have delivered on our commitment to support three 24/7 community pharmacies, including our very own in Clovelly Park. As I have already shown, we are pretty clearly into delivering even more than we committed to before the election and we have opened another one—a fourth—in Hallett Cove. We have increased weekend discharge, expanded Preventive Health SA and secured mental health community services, including the Co-Responder model with SA Police, which is now expanding into the southern suburbs.

We all know that ramping is not just a South Australian problem. It is a national symptom of more than a decade of neglect and cuts from Liberal-National Coalition governments—governments that failed to invest in aged care and Medicare. The collapse of primary care has meant that many people cannot see their GP for weeks, bulk-billing plummeted forcing people into emergency departments instead and South Australia has the highest aged-care occupancy in the nation at around 98 per cent. With nowhere else to go, older South Australians are stuck in a hospital bed when they should be receiving more appropriate care elsewhere.

Unlike those opposite, we have been brave enough to make demands of the commonwealth government even when they are wearing the same colours, and we will continue to do so. We will continue to advocate for the commonwealth government to increase their investment in the aged-care sector as a direct measure to address ramping.

This motion does nothing to improve emergency care for South Australians, it does nothing to reduce ramping, it does nothing to acknowledge the genuine structural work underway. This opposition has failed to show South Australians that they are meant to be an alternative government. They are all opposition—they've got no ideas, no vision. They have no real plan for our healthcare system. They do have a plan to cut $1.6 billion from the budget in one fell swoop though, with the one policy, and where do we think those cuts will happen? Do we think that the public can really trust that they will not happen in health? While the Liberals play politics, this government is delivering the beds, the workforce, the infrastructure and the system reform required to fix the health system they broke.

The opposition leader spoke about trust, so let's talk about trust. If you cannot even trust an opposition to write a motion more than one sentence long, how can you trust them to build a better healthcare system?

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (11:53): Where to start, really? First of all, of course I support the motion that has been put forward by the leader, and it is a really important one that this house debates—but more than that, it is a really important one that the people of South Australia need a real conversation about. I thought it was interesting that the member for Elder referenced this playing of politics, and yet this was the same member who promised her community that she would be part of a team that would fix ramping. It was not about response times and it was not about building a bigger healthcare system. It was not about improving access to aged care and it was not about acknowledging that this was some national crisis that every single jurisdiction right across Australia was dealing with. In fact, this is something that the former Marshall Liberal government was at pains to speak about publicly. We were well aware of the challenges in the health system.

And what better test of strength to our health system than how we dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic? All of these things which the then Liberal government were talking about were not good enough for those opposite. The Labor Party went out and made a political promise which was to fix ramping and they did so because they wanted to run the biggest scare campaign that our state has ever seen—and they did, they scared people. I see the member for Elizabeth nodding when I say they ran the biggest scare campaign in South Australia's history. He is nodding because he knows that it was effective. But guess what? At the next election people will see in true form the real results that this government has been delivering.

Had the Labor Party had some backbone and gone to the people of South Australia and said, 'What we are seeing at the moment isn't good enough and these are the policies that we put forward to try to turn the dial,' maybe—just maybe—there would be some leniency in the community.

The reason why the spotlight is so transfixed on this promise to fix ramping is because that was the type of emphasis that the Labor Party put on it when they went to the election. It was not a throwaway line that the Premier made at one press conference. It was not a throwaway line that the shadow minister for health made. Every single member of this now Liberal government went to the election promising their communities that they would fix ramping.

The leader has already spoken and waxed lyrical about the fact that Labor has now delivered 41 of the worst months in South Australia's history. That is bad, not just because they failed on their political promise, it is bad because it is the people of South Australia who ultimately suffer. We see no remorse from the Premier about his promise. All we see is mealy-mouthed excuses from this government. They are desperate to try to play politics.

There are a few quotes that I would like to bring to the attention of the house. This is after the election and after we saw the ads of Ash the Ambo urging people to vote Labor like their life depended on it, because one day it just might. This was after the Premier had his face on the Stobie poles with the promises about the right priorities and he was going to fix ramping. After the election, FIVEaa asked a series of questions of the Premier and here is one that I quote:

The commitment that I made and deserve to be held to account over was to get ramping back down to 2018 levels.

He then went on to say:

And the objective there is so that we can start having ambulances roll up on time.

Only, that last bit of the sentence was not there before the election. Before the election it was all about ramping.

What were the ramping stats in 2018 to get down to the 2018 level? There are a few numbers here that have been floating around. At the end of 2017 and the start of 2018, it was 482 hours, 516 hours, 652 hours and 749 hours and there has not been a single month of ramping under this government that falls anywhere near that. In fact, the last month alone was more than 2,000 hours worse than the very worst month under the former Liberal government.

What do we see from the Premier and the minister? We see them just trying to point the finger and have the blame game against Canberra, pointing to the exact same issues about the lack of investment into aged care that existed before the election that they are now using as their reason why they have not delivered on their major promise to fix ramping for the people of South Australia.

What were ramping hours in the last full month of the Marshall Liberal government? In February 2022—a month out from the election—1,500 hours. That is how many hours South Australian patients and paramedics spent stuck on the ramp. That was the very month that the Premier swanned across the stage at his convention talking about how he was going to fix the ramping crisis for the people of South Australia, when ramping was at 1,500 hours. What is it now? A lot worse than that. It has more than doubled under this government and they have delivered 41 of the worst months of ramping in South Australia's history.

There are a number of policies that we have announced over the course of the last few days, and I have been really proud to stand with the leader to release them. They have been backed by a number of peak bodies, a number of the health stakeholder groups here in South Australia, which we have been really grateful for.

First up, on Sunday, we stood with Molly. Molly is a second-year nursing student at the University of South Australia, and she is part of the next generation of nurses and midwives that we need to see here in South Australia so that we can really grow not just our workforce into the future but our services. As our population grows—and of course we know that there are population growth ambitions of the state government—we need more services, not fewer. To make sure that the people of our state have a much better healthcare system, we need to have a much better pipeline of nurses and midwives in South Australia.

We were really proud to announce a $90 million package about growing the next generation of nurses and midwives. Part of the reason that we are doing that and stumping up that money is not just because we believe on this side of the house that our nurses and our midwives should be supported through their placement, where they work 160 hours per placement without any pay, but because it is a national and international competition to get the best and brightest healthcare workers in South Australia.

And guess what? Just across the border we have a government in Victoria that recognises that it is a national and international competition; we have a government in New South Wales that recognises that, and they are stumping up the cash with these exact types of initiatives. If we do not do that in South Australia, then we will literally watch the next generation just pack their bags and head across the border, so much so that Molly was speaking to the leader and me about her sister, who is seriously putting under the microscope what is on offer in Victoria. There are people who are looking across the border, where they know that they will get the financial support to start a career in a health system that is struggling, and they want that financial incentive.

On Monday, we stood with Elizabeth Dabars and the ANMF, who supported our retention and re-entry policy. Every meeting that I have with Elizabeth Dabars—and there are many—she speaks to me about the need to keep experienced midwives and nurses in the health system. This is something that we have to focus on on this side of the house, and it is not the only thing required. Of course, the system itself needs to be improved, they do need a pay rise and they do need better conditions. I do hope that the Labor government go back with a fair deal for nurses before the election so that they can see real change.

We have sent a really strong signal to our experienced nurses and midwives that we back you. We understand how difficult it is. We spoke with Toni, who is a nurse who has been working at the RAH for a long time. She said she is just exhausted, and there are lots of people who are leaving the system. Elizabeth Dabars made reference to the fact that experienced nurses are so worn out that they are now going to get jobs at the Airport or at Bunnings because that is how valued they feel under this government. That is why we need to change that. We have a policy to do so.

Of course, as the leader said, we spoke with the Royal College of GPs today and we back their proposal, an $11 million proposal to make sure that we get the best and brightest GPs to South Australia so that families can have easy access to their GP. If it is hard for people to get in to see their GP, where do they end up? In our emergency departments, and that exacerbates ramping, and that is exactly what this government has failed to show action on.

I support this motion. I urge the Premier and the minister to stop with the mealy-mouthed excuses. It is no longer cutting the mustard. Stop blaming Canberra. A state Labor blaming federal Labor—everyone is getting a bit sick of it. Just own up to your promises and go to the next election with a suite of policies that will generally assist the people of South Australia. People see through the mealy-mouthed excuses of this government and so do we.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:03): I rise to speak on this motion, and it is a very important motion. What we have seen over recent times is that South Australia is headed down a path that might almost be irretrievable. I am very worried that this current government continues to be in denial. They continue to walk away from their responsibility and they continue to absolve themselves of their responsibility to fix ramping. I do not know how many hundred or thousand corflutes were on poles before the 2022 election. I do not know where Ash is. Ash has disappeared—

Mr Pederick: And her chalk box.

Mr WHETSTONE: —and her chalk friends because it was 'vote like your life depends on it' and that sent a very, very scary directive to the voters, to the people of South Australia that this government was going to going to fix the ramping crisis and yet we have seen exactly the opposite.

The government have overseen the worst ramping in the state's history and the people of South Australia need to be reminded every day that not only have they not fixed it but they are not even heading in the right direction. They are not even putting their shoulder to the wheel and dealing with the issue. They are just too busy spinning. They are putting the spin out there that they are putting more money into different areas, more money into health, but it is not fixing the problem. If I were running a business and continued to pour other people's money into an area that was not working, I would definitely change tack. I would definitely look at ways to seriously fix the issue.

Since they were elected, we have had patients who have spent the equivalent of 18 years and nine months stuck outside of our hospitals. That is 18 years and nine months stuck outside of hospitals. In comparison, in the former Liberal government's entire term patients spent nearly half that amount of time off the ramp and getting the care they needed. Paramedics spent the time doing their jobs, what they are paid to do, instead of being stuck outside of EDs.

Ramping is a symptom of a broken health system, which is exactly what Labor have delivered right across the state. As I have said, and I will continue to say, we are continuing to slide. We are not even gaining ground on the number of hours being ramped. We have a health minister who gives us spin every day. We have a Premier who is in denial and continues to detract from the issue and that is to fix ramping. I want to reiterate that we were given a pledge by the government, by the Premier, by the Labor Party of South Australia that they would fix ramping and they have not even got close.

If I look at regional health, particularly up in the great electorate of Chaffey, healthcare access and economic hardship are ongoing issues, especially in my home region. In Labor's last budget, no certainty was provided for regional health care. There was no specific funding to ease pressure on our local hospitals or to bolster mental health services. As an example, we saw a large amount of funding that was put into helipads, and we are nearly two years on. We have a couple of helipads that are operational, but now we find that there are major issues with these helipad upgrades. Not only are we now seeing Health and Treasury looking to acquire homes but they are looking to acquire real estate and they are looking to move infrastructure so the helipads can be compliant. It really does beggar belief that there was not more planning put into place.

I have two facilities in Chaffey: the Loxton hospital and the Berri regional hospital. We have one helipad with an aged-care facility right next door. They are almost going to have to put high voltage fencing around this helipad so they do not put aged people at risk. We also have the helipad at Berri. There is an awning that comes out of the hospital over to the helipad. There is no protection there, should they have to use that in inclement weather. I know they have had issues with the windsocks. They have had issues with compliance. It has just been night tested and it looks like they are going to be able to open that helipad sometime soon.

We continue to talk about the limited access to specialist services in regional and remote communities. Those people seeking health care have to go and fill out onerous paperwork under PATS (Patient Assisted Transport Scheme) because they have to endure a six-hour round trip from the Riverland down to Adelaide. Not only are they away from their family and friends but they are away from their workplace.

They are away from a support mechanism that some people would understand if they had been through health hardship, having treatment or going down there for surgery. It is a time when you need to have the comfort of being around your loved ones, or take comfort in knowing that you will not be financially burdened or crippled by undertaking some of those health procedures.

It does come at great cost: time, stress, accommodation and travel expenses. I say to people who live in the metropolitan areas and the urban areas in Adelaide, 'Please understand what it is like to live in a regional setting.' Yes, we decide that we are going to live in the regions because we love living in the regions and it is a way of life and it is where we are, and a lot of those people are providing great frontline services. A lot of them are providing food for people and a lot of them are providing an economic stimulus to South Australia's economy, and that is why regional South Australia is so important.

I must say that the important work done under the former Liberal government was putting those vital health systems in place and with new infrastructure, but there is more to be done—there is much more to be done. As I said, the transparency, has been a real issue. For nearly four years now the opposition has continually asked the Premier and the health minister about fixing ramping and we continually get spin over and over again.

One of my concerns is that the government are absolving themselves of responsibility. The government have walked away from their key messaging and their key promise to South Australians that they would fix ramping. I am sure that there is a warehouse full of corflutes telling South Australians that they will fix ramping. It is a very large warehouse, not just a small one. It would have many, many thousands of corflutes in it because every South Australian was absolutely bombarded with that messaging, up on Stobie poles and anywhere they could get a tie strap to hold one of those signs up.

Over time, we have seen generational change. People's expectations of the health system has seen the closure of some of our mental health institutions and some of our other healthcare institutions, and now we are seeing people, rather than being serviced and dealt with in those facilities, turning up at emergency departments.

They are part of the problem because the hospitals were not designed to take every concerning medical issue. There were institutions that used to look after mental health. There were institutions to help with domestic violence. There were institutions that did run-of-the-mill health and after-hours health care. What we are seeing now is that this government has centralised so much of the health system. What it has shown us now is that it has clogged the system, and the system is now bursting at the seams, particularly in being able to accommodate, deal with and treat people who turn up at emergency departments.

If you were to visit the page about ramping, the format of that page has now changed. Once upon a time it was easily accessible, easily definable as to how much ramping there was, and what the dashboard would say. All of a sudden, it has become quite difficult to understand the messaging, what the numbers are, and just exactly what the current situation is. It now needs a trained eye to be able to undertake and assess where the ramping is and just how quickly you can be treated.

In conclusion, the government has failed South Australians. The 'fixing the ramping' pledge by the Premier, by the South Australian Labor government is nothing more than a hoax, and people should recognise that at the coming election.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:14): I rise to support this motion by the leader:

That this house condemns the Malinauskas government for failing to fix ramping.

The response from the government about this motion here today is interesting because the Malinauskas Labor government has dismally failed to fix ramping. As has already been stated in this house, coming into the last election there were thousands—literally thousands—of corflutes that said that the Malinauskas Labor government, if elected, would fix ramping. What a joke—what a joke!

Now we hear all the spin that we have hired so many doctors, hired so many nurses, opened up so many hospital beds. That is all great, but guess what? It has not fixed ramping—nowhere near it. Ramping is as bad as it has ever been. In fact, it is worse than it has ever been. We have had 41 of the worst months of ramping on record. This does not help people in the city and it does not help people in the country.

We have a government that tries to defend its spending on health and its policies on health. This is the government that shut the Repatriation hospital at Daw Park. It is outrageous, especially in light of the service that that hospital had provided for veterans over decades. They were certain that they could centralise services. It was completely outrageous, and we saw veterans campaigning for many, many months, literally living on the front steps of Parliament House, to turn that around. Thankfully, we turned that around when in government.

Look at these policy positions. Look at EPAS, which turned into Sunrise, which is the electronic patient management system that the Labor government introduced into the system. That system would have cost a billion dollars—a billion dollars—to implement, and it is still being implemented in country hospitals across the state. It is sad that when you go and visit someone in hospital, you wonder why the nurses—no discredit to them—are on an electronic machine out in the corridor for maybe quarter of an hour of every hour, punching information into this recording device that was not particularly designed for working in the health system.

It is just so much money gone down the drain. It is hopeless. Talking about hopeless, look at the money that the government has spent on helipads. Helipads and airstrips for the Royal Flying Doctor Service are vitally important in country areas. There are 13 helipads that have had $23 million spent on them. The government, in the full light of day, knew that there were going to be compliance issues. If they did not, that shows how bad they are, because the compliance issues had been around for a while and they should have known about them.

They built these helipads. They had fences in the wrong place. They upgraded the ones next to hospitals like mine at Mannum and Murray Bridge. They had to lower the fences—and then what? Just in my electorate, there are two of the six helipads out of the 13 that are not operational. I do not know when these helipads will be operational at Mannum and Murray Bridge.

These helipads are situated directly outside the emergency access to the emergency departments at both hospitals and they are vital for not just country people but people who are travelling through, people who are touring, people who are using facilities and touring through the great area of the Murraylands. Whether they are enjoying motor racing down at The Bend, whether they are going out to Monarto Safari Park, or whether they are part of the $500 million economy per year, up and down the River Murray people have accidents. Stuff happens, and it is not just regional people that the failure to have these helipads in place affects.

The truth is that after the government invested this $23 million, for over 12 months—close to 14 months now—we have not seen helicopters land at Mannum or Murray Bridge. My office is in Murray Bridge, and when I am there I know that roughly on average, back in the day, a MedSTAR helicopter would come in about once a day. That has just disappeared. What is the cause and effect of that?

It may be subjective but I have had people say to me, constituents say to me, 'How do we know people haven't died because of the lack of that access?' And how do we know? I know of a baby that had to be stabilised and then taken to Adelaide in a land ambulance where that baby's health would have been so much better if they could have been put in that life-saving helicopter. There are other stories about patients who have not been able to move out to the alternative site from Murray Bridge out to Pallamana, which is at least a 15-minute travel time for the 15 kilometres from the emergency department out to Pallamana Airfield. It is just outrageous.

To top it off, instead of the MedSTAR crews flying out to Murray Bridge in their helicopter, they will come out in land-based ambulances. This is tying up ambulances at each end—but again, no discredit to the workers, the MedSTAR pilots, the paramedics, the nurses and all those who assist with our vital emergency care. It is just not operating as it should for the safety and the survival of people who rely on this vital life-saving service. It is no different to how the Royal Flying Doctor Service got set up because we had to have quick access to medical treatment for people who were, essentially, in a life or death situation. It is just completely outrageous. Now we know due to this poor planning that they are putting up signs at some helipads, I think it is the one at Victor Harbor, about what needs to happen when a helicopter might land.

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia: Stay in your car.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, 'Stay in your car', is what it says—and then at Murray Bridge they have to buy four houses. At what cost? The department will have to compulsorily acquire four houses, because you know what? They forgot about the compliance issues and they have not admitted to it with downdraft to the helicopters landing, with the new rules and regulations that were coming into place. The stupidity of it is that they have placed the liability on the pilots, and I get it: they do not want to take the liability of landing at a helipad and potentially injuring someone on the ground.

This is where the stupidity comes in. These helicopters, these vital life-saving helicopters, luckily, can still land next to a crashed vehicle on a road or in a paddock next to a road or on an oval, because those areas are exempt from the downdraft issues. This is some of the ridiculousness around the lack of these vital health services, not just in my area but right across country areas in this state.

In regard to the ramping crisis, we were told coming into the last election that people should vote for Labor and that their life depended on it. Look what they have got: they have got hospitals overfull, emergency departments flooded with patients and the ramps clogged up with ambulances. We had Ash the Ambo and her friends chalking ambulances. Where are their thousands of corflutes now? It is completely outrageous.

In October this year, it was revealed that patients and paramedics spent 3,958 hours stuck on the ramp outside hospitals. The latest October data shows patients and paramedics have now spent more than 164,218 hours stuck outside our hospitals on the ramp since Labor was elected, the equivalent of 18 years. For comparison, there were only 75,000 hours lost during the entire four-year term of the former Liberal government.

It was a completely outrageous statement made at the last election by this Peter Malinauskas Labor government, that they would fix ramping 'like your life depends on it'. Well, that has not happened. There are so many other issues out there in the health scene, including the lack of use of helipads' life-saving service in regional areas. It is completely disgusting, and they need to pay at the next election.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (12:24): I commend the motion to the house.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 12

Noes 24

Majority 12

AYES

Basham, D.K.B. (teller) Batty, J.A. Cowdrey, M.J.
Ellis, F.J. Gardner, J.A.W. Patterson, S.J.R.
Pederick, A.S. Pratt, P.K. Tarzia, V.A.
Teague, J.B. Telfer, S.J. Whetstone, T.J.

NOES

Andrews, S.E. Bettison, Z.L. Boyer, B.I.
Brown, M.E. Champion, N.D. Clancy, N.P.
Close, S.E. Cook, N.F. Dighton, A.E.
Fulbrook, J.P. Hildyard, K.A. Hood, L.P.
Hughes, E.J. Koutsantonis, A. Malinauskas, P.B.
Mullighan, S.C. Odenwalder, L.K. (teller) O'Hanlon, C.C.
Pearce, R.K. Picton, C.J. Savvas, O.M.
Stinson, J.M. Thompson, E.L. Wortley, D.J.

PAIRS

Pisoni, D.G. Michaels, A.
Hurn, A.M. Szakacs, J.K.

Motion thus negatived.

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