MARJORIE JACKSON-NELSON HOSPITAL

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:49): Why has the Premier abandoned his promise to South Australians made during the 2002 and 2006 election campaigns to rebuild and redevelop the Royal Adelaide Hospital? Why will he not take his new promise for the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital to the 2010 election?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the Premier's 2006 election policy on health, he confirmed, 'I committed Labor to the redevelopment of the Royal Adelaide Hospital,' and in his media release of 12 March 2006 he said: 'I promise to redevelop the Royal Adelaide Hospital.' Yesterday at the media conference he said that he had a mandate to bulldoze the Royal Adelaide Hospital and to commit the taxpayers to a multibillion dollar—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Sir—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Sir, my point of order is that I cannot hear the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and I would like to, because she may have something worth while to say. It seems unlikely, but they are so rude to her.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members will take their seats. The house will become silent and will come to order. I do not think that the deputy leader's explanation is really offering much, in terms of an explanation of the question. However, I will let her continue. I do not want to upset the opposition.

Ms CHAPMAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I see that the Minister for Infrastructure is eager to hear the balance. I am now on the promise to bulldoze. The Premier said that he had a mandate to commit taxpayers to a multi-billion dollar new private hospital to be built by a private consortium under ongoing financial arrangements to be funded from the health budget through to 2046. However, that decision has never been put to an election of the people—

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Sir, I rise on a point of order. The deputy leader made a false statement when she referred to a private hospital. She is commenting most inaccurately about this matter.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I am more than happy for the minister to state that in the course of his answer. It is for that reason that I caution members about their explanations, particularly when they insert argument and claims in their explanations. It is only fair for me to allow the minister who is answering the question to refute any claims or any arguments that are made in the course of a question.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:52): Thank you very much—and I thank the member for the opportunity once again to explain to her and to the house the government's commitment to rebuilding our health care system in South Australia. When we came to government six years ago, we inherited a health care system that was on its knees. The health infrastructure of our state was the oldest and the most dilapidated in the commonwealth of Australia.

We committed ourselves (and we are continuing to do so) to rebuilding the health care system of this state. We are rebuilding the Lyell McEwin Hospital: we are expanding it dramatically and doubling it in size. We are rebuilding the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and dramatically improving its capacity to deal with people in the western suburbs. We are massively expanding the capacity of the Flinders Medical Centre, and we are rebuilding the central hospital.

If the debate is that it is not called the RAH but it will be called the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital, you have that argument all you like out in the public. The public of South Australia wants a brand new state-of-the-art contemporary hospital to service them, their children and their grandchildren.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The comparison between what you are arguing for, which is to refurbish a broken-down, dilapidated rabbit warren of a hospital, compared to the new hospital that we are proposing—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left will come to order. There is a big difference between interjecting and trying to shout down a minister.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will calm myself. I was, unfortunately, stimulated into passion. The comparison between the two options is really the essence of the point that the member for Bragg made. Should we as a community, should we as a society, rebuild the RAH—everyone agrees that that hospital is no longer adequate and will no longer be adequate for the future needs of our state—or should we start again on a new site?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The Health Department of South Australia gave me advice, and I took that advice to the cabinet and the cabinet endorsed it. That advice was that, absolutely and categorically, the better option by far is to start again. If we were to try and rebuild the RAH on the existing site, it would produce a very difficult set of circumstances for the people who use the hospital and the people who work there—not just for a few years, but for over 10 years. It would take an enormously long time to rebuild that hospital while it is still a working institution.

In addition to that, not only would it cause great inconvenience for those who are working there, but it would reduce the capacity of the hospital for all of the time that it was under construction, to the extent that we would have to seriously consider building a temporary hospital on some site to deal with up to 200 patients.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: No, that is the advice I have. It is all right—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —for the opposition to come in here and make claims and go to the media and say, 'There is a simple way of doing this.' However, it has to be forced to look at the consequences of that simple way.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Listen, member for Bragg—

The SPEAKER: Order! I warn the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The Minister for Health.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Let me say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: it is all right for you to make claims in the public arena without any justification at all; what we in government have to do is to prove and demonstrate, to ourselves initially and then to the public, that it is the better way to go.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I warn the member for MacKillop. The Minister for Health.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: A range of issues have been thrown about, which I will try to get to seriatim. The central point is: which is the preferred option? The advice to me and the advice to cabinet is that building a new hospital is by far the better option. Why is that so? Because it causes less inconvenience. For us to rebuild the RAH (or for them to rebuild the RAH) would seriously inconvenience everybody on that site for a very long time. The second point is that there would not be sufficient—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I'm happy to bring further reports to this house. Members opposite keep saying that I refuse to give them information about the comparison between the two sites. That is a false claim. I have extensively explained to the house on a number of occasions why the comparison is such that the new hospital is the better option. I have given facts and figures that have been provided to me.

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Finniss! The Minister for Health.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The second point is that if we were to rebuild the hospital it would seriously reduce our hospital capacity during the course of that rebuilding. So, for about nine or 10 years we would be seriously short a number of beds—somewhere in the order of about 180 to 200 beds, as I recall it. In other words, we would have to create a temporary hospital (of about the same size as the Modbury Hospital) in which we could put the people whom the Royal Adelaide Hospital otherwise would look after.

The third reason why constructing a new hospital is superior to the rebuilding of the RAH is, of course, the cost. It will cost approximately $1.7 billion to rebuild the new hospital. Members opposite like to say that it will be $1.9 billion. What they are doing is adding in the clean-up costs and the removal of the railway track to another place. Of course, if they were to do any of the things that they would like to do on that site, they would still have to spend that $200 million to get the railway tracks off the site, so that should be a neutral issue.

It will cost $1.7 billion to build the hospital, compared to $1.4 billion or thereabouts to refurbish the RAH. What we know, of course, is that once we have the new hospital constructed we will start making savings of around $50 million a year and so, in the course of six years, it would be cost-neutral. Of course, that is about how much extra time would be taken to build the RAH. Of course, if you compare one option with the other, they come out at pretty well the same price. However, those savings of $50 million a year are ongoing well into the future; so, as a long-term prospect, it is the cheaper, better option.

In addition to that, of course, it will be a state-of-the-art contemporary hospital built around the needs of the future community, not the community which existed in the 19^th century. All those reasons convinced me and, as a result of that, I was able to convince my cabinet colleagues that this was the better way to go.

I am happy to fight any election over this issue. I think the thing that the opposition would be most nervous about was if we had not signed the contract by the next election, because they would be forced to fight an election over the options: stadium or brand new, state-of-the-art hospital for the future of South Australia.