MARJORIE JACKSON-NELSON HOSPITAL

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:19): My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister guarantee that all Royal Adelaide Hospital staff will be offered a job at the proposed Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital? The reason I ask this, and therefore seek leave to make an explanation, is that on 28 January the minister told ABC morning radio hosts:

What we are wanting to build is a new hospital, not just a rebuild of the existing hospital. So it's not the Royal Adelaide Hospital on a new site.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:20): I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I like the premise on which her question is asked, which is an absolute tacit understanding that the new hospital will be built. I would say to the house that, whichever side happens to form government after the next election, the new hospital will be built because it is the logical and sensible thing to do. It is the only clear way forward when dealing with the health pressures in our state. We have growing demand in our state for health services. We need to build more of them. We cannot provide sufficient services at the existing site, and logic says we should move to the new site. That leads me to the point of the question.

This will be a bigger hospital with more wards, more beds, more emergency services, more in-patient and outpatient activity, more research facilities and more intensive care units. We will need all the staff we can possibly find. Can I tell you who in 2016 will be getting any of the jobs? Of course I cannot. I do not know who would want the jobs, I do not know who would be working in the hospital, and I do not know what the service profile will be. But there will be more jobs available for doctors, nurses and other allied health staff than now, and I am very confident that anyone who wants to work in that hospital who has clinical skills will get work there.