ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (15:07): My question is to the Minister for Health. Has he now promised to move the Women's and Children's Hospital to the rail yards RAH site? Exactly where will it be located? When will it move? What will be the cost and when will the amount be budgeted? On 5 March the minister told FIVEaa radio, 'There's five hectares that can be used for expansion, including the Women's and Children's Hospital.'

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:08): I thank the member for his question. It was an interesting way of putting a question—have I now done something—which is fine, but there is no basis for that question other than his own opinions. The government has not—and, in fact, I was criticised in the media the other day for not doing this—I said it would be incredibly popular to go to the Women's and Children's Hospital and say, 'Yes, we're going to move your hospital down to the Royal Adelaide Hospital site at some stage in the future,' which is what the AMA has asked me to do. I said I have resisted that. I said it would be something for a future government to contemplate.

The existing capital at the Women's and Children's Hospital still has a lot of life in it. At some stage it could move. I personally think it would be a good idea if it were to be merged with the Royal Adelaide Hospital in the future. But that's not a position of the government; that's just an individual position. Certainly, when we looked at building the new RAH some years ago, we looked at whether or not the Women's and Children's Hospital should be part of that development. It made sense from a clinical point of view but not from a cost-benefit point of view. There was still a lot of capital tied up in that site.

So, that is essentially where we are at. There is capacity at the new RAH site—as the member said, five hectares or thereabouts—to increase the size of the RAH by about 30 per cent. That could, if a government of the future chose to do it, include the Women's and Children's Hospital or at least the services which are currently provided at the Women's and Children's Hospital.

The point would be of course that, if a future government were to consider it, they would probably merge the hospitals rather than build a stand-alone hospital adjacent to the RAH, because you get benefits of scale from doing that. There are certain sorts of equipment you would not need to have in both hospitals and the like, but the government has not made a promise about it. Interestingly, when I was interviewed by Today Tonight the other night, they said to me that the Liberal Party had in fact promised to do that. I said, 'Well, that's interesting.'

An honourable member: That's not correct.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I'm glad you said that, because the journalist—not that journalists ever make mistakes; they rarely make mistakes—put to me that the Liberal Party had said that it was their policy to move the hospital to that site, and I said, of course, 'Well, that's strange, because last week they thought it was too polluted to put an adult hospital there; now they want to put a children's hospital.' Now I know it's not correct; I know you wouldn't have said that.