Royal Adelaide Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): Sorry, sir, but I need to seek clarification here.

The SPEAKER: Just ask a question.

Mr MARSHALL: When will the South Australian government take possession of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:24): As I said, the developers, according to the independent analysis by Treasury, we do not believe will be ready, so we have made the adjustments in the Mid-Year Budget Review and in the budget. The opposition has been privy to this since the Mid-Year Budget Review. That is over six months ago and these are the first questions that they have asked.

The truth is that there have been delays due to weather and there have been delays due to incidents on the site. We hope that they finish at the time that they said they would. We will see. But with any project being constructed, there is always going to be some slippage and we are talking about a few months. Let's hope that the contractors can make up the time, get good weather, have good practices, have no more incidents on site with any cranes touching or any fatalities on site, and that they are able to deliver the project as promised.