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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-09-27 Daily Xml
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Health Portfolios

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:56): My questions are to the Minister for Health. As part of the ministerial transitions, has the minister had personal briefings with each of the member for Taylor and the member for Playford since being appointed as their successor? Secondly, what is the role of the Minister Assisting the Minister for Health and the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, a role to which the member for Kaurna has been appointed?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for his question. I am very grateful to have been able to talk to both the member for Taylor and the member for Playford regarding my new responsibilities and to get their insights regarding their experiences in carrying these portfolios. We are very lucky on this side of the chamber that we are a unified team that works closely together.

Everyone is committed to achieving good public policy outcomes in the way that only a unified team can, so I feel very grateful to be able to contact both the member for Taylor and the member for Playford and to be able to pick their brains if the need arises. Equally, it is true that they are not seeking to impose themselves on me with advice. I now have these responsibilities and I want to put on the record my gratitude to each of them for making themselves available if and when I need them.

Regarding the member for Kaurna's role as the minister assisting me in health, again that is something I am incredibly grateful for. The member for Kaurna himself has an extraordinary amount of experience regarding the health portfolios generally. Chief amongst that experience, of course, is the member for Kaurna's role as a chief of staff to the federal minister for health. That gives him a great degree of insight regarding federal health policy, and I think there is a great need for that. In fact, something that has come up in briefings I have already had and indeed in meetings with some stakeholders is that the intersection between health policy at a federal level and a state level is an important variable when it comes to service delivery for South Australians.

I don't think there are too many South Australians who really care who is paying for their health care, in terms of what jurisdiction or what government, or really care about the fed-state split regarding primary health care or hospital health care. All they want is a healthcare system that works to make sure they get better quicker. That's what South Australians care about, and I think it's going to be incumbent upon me as the state Minister for Health to have a productive working relationship with the federal Minister for Health, notwithstanding the fact that of course there will be moments of disagreement.

I look forward to speaking to the federal Minister for Health. I have a time lined up in the next 24 hours to be able to do that and I welcome the opportunity to work with the federal health minister. The member for Kaurna will be able to assist me in that process. As I said earlier, he was the chief of staff to the former federal health minister, Nicola Roxon, who was outstanding in that job and I look forward to working closely with the member for Kaurna. He will be taking on a number of questions in the other place regarding health matters, but he will be able to provide me with insights that I currently don't have available to me and I look forward to receiving those.

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