Health Care Bill

This speech is to indicate the Liberal Party's position on how they are voting in regards to the Health Care Bill.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The purpose of rising at this juncture is to put the Liberal Party's position in terms of how we will be voting, and also to ask some questions. We clearly did not support the second reading, and we will be calling for a division on the third reading. There are some questions that may have been addressed at clause 58, which is one of the clauses relating to ambulance services, but I am quite happy to put them on the record now. I would like to reiterate my thanks to officers in the minister's office for providing a further briefing. During that briefing, we talked about non-emergency ambulance services, of which I understand that there are three: the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the State Emergency Service hospital retrieval teams and a service that is provided by Booleroo Centre. There are some rumours in that region that independent licences will not be issued in the future. Booleroo ambulance service has a licence until June 2008, and in the past it has had some difficulty in gaining its licence in a timely manner, and taking up to 12 months to do so. First, will the minister please advise which of those non-emergency services it is intended will be licensed and, secondly, can she give me an assurance that the Booleroo ambulance service will continue to have its licence? In a separate issue, the Liberal opposition has been approached by a gentleman by the name of David Zammitt, who has long sought to obtain a licence to operate an ambulance service. The organisation's name is WorkCare SA. The Minister for Health stated in an email to him on 30 June 2007, 'Once the proceedings are resolved I will move as expeditiously as possible to finalise the matter.' Here we are in February 2008 and I understand that that has not been resolved. So, if the minister could provide some explanation for the lengthy nature of this matter and whether there are any reasons why that organisation should not receive a licence, I would be very grateful.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.