Labor promised to open 300 new hospital beds and employ 100 new doctors as it officially launched its South Australian election campaign.
In a presidential-style event at the Adelaide Oval in North Adelaide, Labor leader Peter Malinauskas made health the focus of his promise to the electorate.
"Today, I start announcing new plans for the most urgent need of all," Mr Malinauskas told the party faithful.
"Today, I start announcing our plan to fix the ramping crisis."
The promise of new beds includes 98 mental health beds divided between the Queen Elizabeth, Modbury and Noarlunga Hospitals and in Mount Gambier.
Labor said the mental health beds will cost $182 million, which it will fund with money the Liberal Party is planning to spend on building a new multi-purpose arena on Adelaide's Riverbank.
Construction on the arena will not begin until 2025 but Labor says it will bring the spending, which will be paid for through debt, forward.
"This is a serious, costed plan. Something that we can only do because we're not proceeding with Steven Marshall's basketball stadium if we are successful at the next election," Mr Malinauskas said.
Labor said it was also planning to spend arena funds on employing 100 more doctors over the next four years.
That includes 50 in Adelaide's public hospitals, 10 in country areas and another 40 in other areas across the system.
But Premier Steven Marshall criticised the move.
"If he took a look at the budget documents that we've presided over the last four years, this would be a massive handbrake, a massive slowing of those increased doctors in South Australia," Mr Marshall said.
"We've put on more than 100 every year since we've been elected."
Labor said the new doctors would be in addition to current growth rates.
On the same day Labor held a large launch event, Mr Marshall held a series of smaller events in marginal electorates across Adelaide which were streamed live on social media.
"I don't think there have been too many mass rallies in political parties right around the world for the last couple of years with the coronavirus," Mr Marshall said.
"So we're having smaller rallies right across the state."
While ramping cases have continued through the pandemic, even through periods of low COVID rates, Mr Marshall criticised Mr Malinauskas for promising to fix the practice.
"He started ramping in South Australia, the Labor Party brought ramping to South Australia, we're doing everything we can to unwind it," he said.
Deputy PM in town for Nationals launch
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was in town to launch the SA Nationals election campaign.
The Nationals are attempting a political comeback in South Australia, targeting eight seats including two in the upper house.
It has been 12 years since the state's last Nationals MP, Karlene Maywald, lost her Riverland seat.
"We see people who cover a wide variety of both occupations, ethnicities, backgrounds, but they combine in such a form of a common belief of a stronger South Australia," Mr Joyce said.
"A political force that represents the disparate corners, a political force that's not embarrassed to stand behind things such as religious freedoms."
The Nationals believe their candidate for the rural mid-north seat of Frome, Loma Silsbury, will be one of the oldest people to ever run for election in SA.
However, Ms Silsbury was coy about her exact age.
"I have been told to say that a lady never mentions her age, but I will tell you this, I have daughters who are in their mid-60s so work it out from there, kids," she said.
The great-grandmother was one of the first 100 women to run for parliament when she first contested a seat at the 1987 federal election for the Nationals.
"It doesn't matter what age you are, we need to be involved, we are our brother's keeper," she told the ABC.
Ms Silsbury said she was passionate about issues of water, mental health and "equality for regional and rural Australia".
"In South Australia, you get to Gepps Cross and everything north of Gepps Cross doesn't exist," she said.
