Labor appeals an Electoral Commission order to pull its ‘Ash the Ambo’ ads
The election watchdog has dismissed a Labor appeal against its order to publish a formal statement finding the Ash the Ambo ad was “misleading”.
State Election
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Labor’s request to the electoral commissioner to overturn his decision to ban its controversial “Ash the Ambo” advertisement has been denied.
The Liberals said it was a “disgrace” and“despicable” that Labor was refusing to publish a retraction of the line“ramping is worse than ever”, which Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry found on Thursday was “inaccurate and misleading”.
Labor pulled the advertisement on Thursday night,but pointed to another comment by Mr Sherry that the ramping high point had been in October 2021 under the current Liberal government.
Labor state secretary Reggie Martin on Friday confirmed the Party had sought independent legal advice on the matter.
Bret Walker SC, Robert Whitington QC and Raymond Finkelstein QC all argued Mr Sherry should not have found the ramping statement was inaccurate and misleading to a material extent.
“The data on ramping disclosed to the commissioner exhibited significant fluctuations from month to month but an overall increasing trend from February 2014 to December 2021,” Mr Whitington wrote in his appraisal of the matter.
Mr Whitington acknowledged there was a decline in ramping in January and February this year but said a systemic reason was not offered and absent this “the data demonstrates an upward trend with periodic declines which no not contradict the long-term trend”.
Both Mr Walker and Mr Finkelstein also pointed to the longer-term upward trends as supporting the statement in Labor's advertisement.
It comes after Mr Sherry told the Opposition to publish the following statement on its website and “wherever else that statement has been distributed”, except television when it was not possible.
“The electoral commissioner has determined that an advertisement authorised by R Martin and published on television and social media contains the following statement purporting to be a statement of fact that is inaccurate and misleading to a material extent; “ramping is worse than ever”.
The ad was still on Labor’s YouTube channel at 4.13pm Friday, more than four hours after the deadline, which Mr Martin said was “an oversight”.
On Friday night the Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry reviewed his decision based on the Labor legal opinions.
He affirmed the original view that Ms Frier’s comment that “Ramping has never been worse” was inaccurate and misleading.
Treasurer Rob Lucas said Labor’s delaying tactics were “despicable” and a “major embarrassment” for Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas.
“They had until 12 noon today to do that, and they’ve thumbed their nose at the independent Electoral Commissioner’s ruling,” Mr Lucas said on Friday.
“It’s an absolute disgrace that Labor is perpetuating lies to try and trick voters to get Mr Malinauskas elected tomorrow.”
Mr Malinauskas said he understood the advertisement had already been pulled at 8.30am Friday. When asked if the ad had been removed due to it being “misleading”, he said “it’s been pulled because it will be replaced with statements of absolute facts”.
RAMPING HAS SHAPED THE CAMPAIGN
Ramping has been the ultimate buzzword in an election build-up dominated by health.
Experts have largely agreed that the Liberals have been outpointed – their narrative of sound economic management through the pandemic drowned out by the relentless campaigning of both Labor and the Ambulance Employees Association on ambulance ramping at our hospitals.
It reached a crescendo over the past week with multiple claims of deaths due to unreasonable waits for ambulances.
Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this story, the caption of the above picture of Dee Madigan stated that she was involved in Labor’s ‘Ash the Ambo’ ad. This was incorrect. The Advertiser apologises for the error.
In Labor’s ad, ‘Ash’ says: “Lives are at risk and Steven Marshall isn’t doing enough.”
The paramedics union last year brought in Sydney agency Campaign Edge’s Dee Madigan – who in 2014 ran a Community and Public Sector Union campaign accusing then-PM Tony Abbott of the “backdoor privatisation of Medicare” – to work on its state election strategy.
The AEA’s campaign has called for more resources and run the emotive tagline: “SA is dying for more ambos.”
Ms Madigan told The Advertiser she had not been involved directly since last year but said: “It’s an important issue – you should get an ambulance on time in an emergency.”
But is ramping really the health crisis it’s so slickly been made out to be by these campaigns?
The Advertiser has delved into the data behind the rhetoric on ramping and other health claims made in the election campaign.
CLAIM: Labor will fix ramping
Posters of Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas make a promise to “fix the ramping crisis”.
And at Labor’s campaign launch on February 20, Mr Malinauskas said: “Today, I start announcing our plan to fix the ramping crisis.”
Yet it is hardly a plan for a quick fix. Labor’s pledge is to reduce ramping to 2018 levels, the year it lost power, over the next full term of government.
On Thursday he admitted at a press conference: “We think it is going to take four years to bring it back down.”
That was after a radio appearance in which he said that “eliminating ambulance ramping would be an irresponsible promise”.
While Labor claims ramping has hugely increased under the Marshall government, in Labor’s last full year in office, on September 17, 2017, with up to 18 ambulances queued in the RAH car park and more on the way, elective surgery was cancelled.
Labor’s TV ads continue to say: “Steven Marshall wants to spend $662m on a basketball stadium” (the Riverbank Arena) – which is actually a replacement for the Adelaide Entertainment Centre and to be used as an extension to the Convention Centre – and that “Labor will spend that money to fix ramping.”
But given the Liberals aren’t planning to spend much on the arena for several years, Labor has to rob a future government’s revenue – the one beyond the 2026 election.
CLAIM: Ramping has increased 485 per cent under the Marshall government
Labor has hammered home this statistic and, comparing hours lost in transfer of patients in 2017 – Labor’s last full year in office – with 2021, it’s correct.
But the Liberals counter by saying ramping has recently been on a steady downward trend. In February, it was 47 per cent lower than in October last year, is dropping every month and is now at the lowest level since December 2020.
In addition, SA is hardly on its own. Through the pandemic it has reportedly increased in every state, with factors such as GPs telling phone patients with respiratory issues to go EDs rather than risking Covid in their waiting rooms.
In WA, the only other state to publicly release its data, ramping in October cost 5486 hours compared to 2868 in SA; by February, WA was on 4360 hours lost compared to SA’s 1522 hours.
Victorian health workers have described their situation as “a public health disaster,” Tasmania’s as a system “at breaking point”, and in Queensland, on one day last month ramping hit 185 hours, indicating more than 5000 hours for the month.
Areas of federal responsibility also affect ramping. Medical experts have constantly complained of ramping being caused by “bed block” due to aged care and National Disability Insurance Scheme patients taking up hospital beds because of a lack of services to discharge them to in the community.
Also, a large majority of ramping cases, about two-thirds, are low priority, similar to the 70 per cent figure for ED presentations that are unnecessary but contribute to long waiting times.
Campaigns by both sides of politics have failed to stop the public clogging hospitals when they don’t need to be there.
CLAIM: “SA is dying for more ambos”, the union slogan
Several deaths including three this week have been linked by the union and Labor to delays in ambulances arriving within target timeframes for the urgency of the cases.
However, the actual cause of these deaths are subject to investigation.
In December, Mr Malinauskas and Labor health spokesman Chris Picton flanked a grieving mother outside Flinders Medical Centre as she blamed ambulance delays for the death of her 26-year-old son in September.
Referring to ramping on the evening of the emergency call, Mr Picton said at the press conference: “Very clearly if those ambulances hadn’t been stuck here at Flinders, then that meant that they could have been responding to cases like Jayden’s earlier and for all we know could have made the difference in saving Jayden’s life.”
But it subsequently emerged there was no delay, with the patient reached faster than the 16-minute target.
In the case at Magill on Tuesday night of a 58-year-old man, who waited two hours for help after a fall, SA Ambulance Service said paramedics arrived shortly after the case was upgraded to priority one.
SAAS also confirmed that in the death of a 79-year-old man at Tungkillo in January, where there was about an hour’s delay, that “a do-not-resuscitate order was in place and CPR was ceased at the home”.
CLAIM: The Liberals have not invested adequately in the health system
Mr Picton has said: “(Premier) Steven Marshall and (Treasurer) Rob Lucas spend a lot of time talking about the cost of fixing the health system, but they ignore the cost of not investing in the health system.”
Yet the Liberals inherited a health system run into the ground by the former Labor government’s disastrous Transforming Health policy – now disowned by Mr Malinauskas, though he was health minister at the end of Labor’s term – that downgraded hospitals and shut the Repat entirely.
As well as reopening the Repat as a health precinct, the Liberals have pointed to a record $7.85bn investment in health including major upgrades to the Queen Elizabeth, Modbury and Noarlunga hospitals as well as Flinders Medical Centre, which now has the biggest ED in the state.
They also point to plans for a new $1.95bn Women’s and Children’s Hospital and record numbers of doctors, nurses and ambulance officers, committing last year to 74 new ambos and 20 more triple-0 call takers.
Initiatives to direct people away from EDs and hence prevent bed block and ramping have included four GP-led GP-led Priority Care Centres for those not needing acute care; redirecting up to 200 triple-0 calls a day to services such as Royal District Nursing Service; the $14m Urgent Mental Health Care Centre in the Adelaide CBD; expanded hospital-at-home service; and multiple preventive care programs.
CLAIM: The Liberals have not supported paramedics
After an Employment Tribunal order this month to cease chalking ambulances with protest signs, the union said that instead of increasing resources for SA Ambulance, “the government has chosen to put all its efforts into silencing our hardworking ambos.”
Ambulance Employees Association state secretary Leah Watkins said: “It seems the only party that does not support ambos is the Liberal Party.”
However, it also showed average ambulance response times across SA in 2021 blew out by 10 minutes to 32.8 minutes and Adelaide recorded the worst response times of any capital city, with 90 per cent of emergency cases reached in 34.4 minutes, an increase from 20.6 minutes a year earlier.
CLAIM: The Liberals have been fudging their health policy numbers
“Steven Marshall can’t get his story straight when it comes to costings,” Labor frontbencher Tom Koutsantonis said.
The Liberals launched their health campaign by announcing a $500m package that would include upgrades of the Repat and the Lyell McEwin, Noarlunga and Modbury Hospitals.
Premier Steven Marshall declared the funding was new money.
However, the government was later forced to concede that only $123m was new money, for capital works, and the rest was for operational costs already included in December’s mid-year budget review.
Then at the SA Press Club debate last week, Mr Marshall told the crowd his party had made less than $300m in election promises overall, including the health pledge.
Mr Koutsantonis said Mr Marshall “can’t get his story straight”.
“One day he is spending $500m on health, the next day he says he is spending less than $300m in total,” he said.
CLAIM: Labor can’t afford its health promises
“Mr Malinauskas is racking up a pre-election spending bill so large and so ludicrous … it should terrify every family and business owner who will ultimately have to suffer the consequences,” Treasurer Rob Lucas opined.
Labor has centred its campaign on health, promising $1.2bn worth of policies.
Yet, as outlined above, it is relying on “bringing forward” the value of the Riverbank Arena in order to fulfil its health pledges.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article captioned a picture of Dee Madigan saying she “masterminded” Labor’s Ash the Ambo ad.
This was incorrect. Ms Madigan and her agency played no part in the creation of the Labor Party ad.
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