Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN ( Stuart ) ( 12:25 :42 ): I will be brief, because I know others want to contribute to this motion. I thank the member for Fisher for bringing this motion and we certainly all wholeheartedly support it. I am very fortunate to be one of the many members who have a strong connection with nurses. My wife, Rebecca, is a nurse; in fact, this year she enters her 30th year as a full-time nurse. She says, very regularly, ‘Old nurses are the best nurses,’ and the reason is that they are the hospital-trained nurses. She has the very strong view that they are the very best nurses by far.

I will just take a couple of minutes to talk about Gayle Woodford and the very tragic situation that happened to her. This is not because there is not a lot more to talk about on this issue—please understand straightaway that I support all the things other members have said. I spent a lot of my working life in the north of the state, including an enormous amount of time at Marla, which is essentially the jumping-off point to the Aboriginal lands. It is also the point where many people from the APY lands, whether they be lifelong residents or people who have been working there for one, or five, or 10 or 15 years, come to regularly for their shopping, socialising, etc.

In my other travels throughout outback South Australia, I came across many nurses doing the sort of work that Gayle Woodford did. Sadly, I can tell you that they often felt concerned that they risked facing the sort of situation that unfortunately came to Gayle Woodford. We must do something about this in South Australia. Nurses face risks in their work in many different ways in metropolitan Adelaide as well, but the tragic murder of Gayle Woodford unfortunately highlights the risks that have been around for decades and which, if we do not do anything about it, will continue to be around for decades.

Fortunately, it is a one-off tragedy in the fact that it has happened, but the risks have been here for ever and ever. It is a workplace risk issue and it is a community risk issue, and we absolutely must address it. I do not believe that we should have twice as many nurses working in these places, because unfortunately that would mean that half of the rest of the communities would miss out on nurses because there are not that many capable qualified nurses willing to go do that sort of work in remote communities.

If we required that wherever there was one nurse there must be two so that they could support each other, in a similar way to two officer patrols in policing, that would just mean that many other communities missed out. But, we do have to put in place a practical policy, which could be different community by community, so that these nurses have the safety and protection of somebody supporting them after hours.

It might be a responsible community member, it might be somebody’s husband, it could be a principal or a teacher from a school, or it could be anybody from any other business. It could be an Aboriginal person or a non-Aboriginal person—that is completely irrelevant—but it is necessary that these nurses have somebody they can call on after hours who will attend with them and essentially be there to support them through that work.

I am not talking about a professional personal bodyguard, but we just know that if there is another person there who can support someone makes a huge difference with regard to how a potential perpetrator would think about their opportunity. We absolutely have to do this in South Australia. First, because we need to make sure that any similar tragedy is averted and, secondly, and nearly as important, so that nurses can feel comfortable about their work. Let us just hope that does not happen again, for decades, but for decades between now and then every nurse who goes out after hours to give care needs to feel much safer at work

I do not think it would be too much for there to be a bit of a roster system in these communities. Let us say that there were half a dozen people who would fall into the category of being willing and able to support a nurse by attending after hours with them; maybe you just have a week on call where you would commit to not consuming alcohol, commit to being available on the phone, etc. When the nurse gets the call to go and attend a medical situation the nurse could then call that person and say, ‘I’ll be around at your house in five minutes, I’ll pick you up and we’ll both go where I need to go to attend to this medical emergency.’

As I said, it can be different community by community, but it needs to be a very practical approach that will support nurses so that they can continue to do their work, without which these communities will not function. If we do not have nurses in these remote communities the communities will deteriorate; the communities will deteriorate without their support. This is incredibly, incredibly important.