Ms CLANCY (Elder) (11:54): I thank the member for Schubert for my promotion to honourable. I always tell people that I am dishonourable when they refer to me as honourable, so I appreciate it, and who knows what will happen in many, many years to come? I want to stand in support of this. I am really pleased to be a member of the Public Works Committee. We get to see so many incredible projects. I have wonderful colleagues on that committee.

I would probably say that the last meeting, a couple of weeks ago, was the most exciting for me because we got to talk about the Edwardstown ambulance station. I was incredibly excited when I found out during the campaign that we had secured a station for that community. It is an area that is in need of that extra support, and I am really glad that instead of waiting until the new station was built to put in those extra paramedics, we actually got them online as soon as we could.

In November, we saw 32 new paramedics start at the Marion station, which is based in Mitchell Park, and 16 of those paramedics will be moving to the new Edwardstown station when it opens. There was a community engagement session last Monday night at the Pasadena Community Centre. As a side note, I am really proud that I was able to advocate for funding to the City of Mitcham to be able to help turn that old Sea Scouts hall into a community space that can be used for events such as these and for community consultations.

That was last Monday, and the focus was on the station and also on the development of the Repat more generally because the new Edwardstown station will be at the Repat, on the Daws Road side. There is some exciting bunting up there, letting everyone know where it is going. I am really excited that construction will begin on that project quite soon, in the next few months, hopefully by the end of the year. I understand it will likely take 12 months to build, but once it is built those 16 paramedics who are currently over in Marion will be, I think, very happy to be moving over to the brand-new station.

It is important to thank the Marion crew, who have been so welcoming of the Edwardstown crew and have been able to make the space and have them there. As a side note, it is important to recognise that the Marion station will also be receiving an upgrade. It will not be a brand-new one, but it will be getting a redevelopment soon as well. I also want to draw attention to the fact that while, yes, we have the new paramedics and we will have the new ambulance station, obviously we are very conscious that we need other health infrastructure to support this project, which is why we have also hired more doctors and nurses and we are bringing online over 200 extra beds in the southern region. That is across Flinders, the Repat and Noarlunga.

This new station forms part of our government's 2022 election commitment to improve infrastructure, increase staffing and provide additional resources for the South Australian Ambulance Service. It will provide alignment to the SA Health strategic plan by strengthening primary health care and enhancing hospital care, by providing more services close to where people live, and by ensuring patient-centric emergency services are designed around community needs, SAAS emergency preparedness and response capacity is commensurate with state and national emergency management arrangements, and ambulance services evolve in line with the health system.

I know the member for Schubert has claimed that we have not wanted to talk about this. We do. We are really proud of the work that we are doing in this space. We knew it was never going to be a quick fix. There is not a silver bullet, but it is why we are doing so many different things in this space to improve our health system: more beds, more doctors, more nurses and more ambos, and additional infrastructure that makes a real difference to members of our communities. I really look forward to seeing what comes next to the Public Works Committee. Hopefully, it is as exciting as the Edwardstown ambulance station, but I think that would be tricky.