Children's Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): A supplementary to the Premier: is it the government's intention to separate seriously ill women from their babies under the new model of care just advanced by the Premier?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:24): No, it's not; of course it's not. Children and neonates—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: No, it's not. The Leader of the Opposition never ceases to astound me with his ignorance or wilful misreading of what is proposed. Neonates will be in the new Adelaide women's hospital. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit will be in the new women's hospital. Paediatric care will continue in the children's hospital at the North Adelaide site while planning starts on a new children's hospital, which will be near the precinct, which will be a paediatric service.

But the neonatal intensive care—just to make it clear for the Leader of the Opposition, newborn babies will be looked after in a neonatal intensive care unit at the new women's hospital. That is why it is there, and it is important to have it there because the clinical advice is that it is important to have those support services from your highest level acuity hospital next to your women's hospital where you are undertaking some of the most complex and difficult birthing. It is important to have those co-located.

The clinicians who have advised us on this tell me this is world's best practice. Unlike those opposite, I always listen closely to our clinicians. The Leader of the Opposition—talk about come in spinner. I am happy to compare our record when it comes to investment in our health care and our public hospitals to the opposition's any day. If there is one thing you can trust the Liberal Party in South Australia on, it is to do nothing when it comes to investment in our public hospitals.

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Is the point of order that when a minister says, 'Come in spinner,' he is probably going to be less than relevant?

Mr GARDNER: Subsequent to that, he was less than relevant.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order.