ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): My question is again to the Premier. Given that the EPA documents show serious groundwater contamination at the site planned for the rail yards hospital, what is the current estimated cost of the clean-up of that contamination?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:31): As I have explained on innumerable occasions, both in here and in other fora, particularly in front of media at press conferences, there are essentially two kinds of pollution that we concern ourselves with on that site. One is the pollution of the watertable, which has occurred over a period of time from spillages and so on associated with running a railway set-up there at the railway site.

The second is the soil pollution. The management of that will be largely addressed through the building of the hospital, because once you put in a large building and you take out soil below it you are actually removing most of that. The cleaning up of the water pollution is more problematic, but I am advised—and I think this is the figure I have given once before, but I will check on it—that the cost of the pollution clean-up is well within the figure of $40 million. I think I have given that to the house before, but I will see if there are any further updates in relation to that and let you know.