House of Assembly: Wednesday, September 09, 2020

Contents

Women's and Children's Hospital TaskForce

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is to the Premier. Why hasn't the government released its task force report, which it has held for 18 months, into the new Women's and Children's Hospital site?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:23): It is a similar answer to the one that I provided earlier, and that is that we need to do the detailed work. The difference between those opposite, sir, and us as a new government, is we are listening to clinicians. I think every South Australian now understands the problems associated with the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and we are working as diligently as we can to fix the mess that we inherited from those opposite.

In contrast to the work done by the previous government, where they ignored the clinicians, we are sitting down with the clinicians to design the very best new facility. It will be a co-located facility with women and children on that site with the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. Those opposite didn't support that—sorry, then they did support it, and then they didn't support that. Nobody actually knows what they currently believe. What we believe is that the people of South Australia deserve the very best and that's why we are working with the clinicians.

The Leader of the Opposition was the health minister. He had an opportunity to do work with the Women's and Children's Hospital. Did he do it? No. His career highlights to date basically deal with knifing Mike Rann, continuing the privatisation of Mount Gambier Prison and closing the Repat Hospital. That's what that guy delivered for South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: And by contrast, every single day that we are here we are working hard for the people of this state and we don't apologise for getting it right, doing the detailed design work, speaking to the clinicians, so that we can deliver a world-class facility that the people of South Australia deserve.

The SPEAKER: I have allowed, I think, six questions to the leader, all of a particular kind. I am going to turn to my right now and then I will give the leader another opportunity.