Women's and Children's Hospital

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (14:45): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister inform the house of the time lines associated with the new Women's and Children's Hospital?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:45): Thank you very much to the member for Newland. I, firstly, appreciate her question and her interest in making sure that we have appropriate services for women, children and babies for this state for the long term. This, as we know, is a project that has been discussed for a long time, but we haven't actually seen any construction work happen on it over the past nine years that this has been discussed as a project. In fact, over the past four years, $53 million has been spent on this project without any sod being turned on that site, any construction underway.

Of course, the original promise that we had in terms of time lines, which I have been asked about, was a commitment that was made by the member for Dunstan—it's great to see him here—where he said, 'In our first 100 days, we will establish a high-level task force to drive the project and develop a fully costed project plan with a view to achieving co-location by 2024.'

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: 2024—so that's not very far away now that that project—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Schubert is called to order. The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Of course, that is not very far away, and for anybody to suggest that a hospital of this magnitude could be built within 18 months, I think, is significantly off the mark. So that time line went completely out the window. In fact, what we know is that it was a task force that was completed. In fact, that task force report was never made public; it wasn't released publicly. But in fact then there was a whole lot of inaction for a whole period of time, there were more delays, more plans—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —being worked on, but I think it is fair to say—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens! Member for Florey! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —that these repeated delays in terms of this project are because of the site. I don't think it's because of the people who were working on it necessarily. I think it's because there is no way of making a hospital work on that site that gets the clinical outcomes that this state needs for women and children and babies. So many compromises would have to be made for that to happen, and that's why we have seen—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —delay after delay after delay on that site, and that's why—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —when we came to government we immediately sought an update in terms of this project and what we were told was that the time lines were blowing out—at that stage, at the very earliest the end of 2027, if not 2028 by that stage. We were immediately told that the budget was blowing out ahead of what had been budgeted the previous year by the previous government and we were told that many of the clinical issues that have been raised could not be resolved, and that's why—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —we appointed Jim Hallion an expert group—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Wright!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: That's why we appointed Jim Hallion an expert group to undertake that work to get a full picture of where that project was up to and any alternatives that we could proceed with. What we have heard in the past couple of days—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Flinders!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —is that somehow this project was shovel ready on that triangle site is completely wrong—completely wrong. There is no way that that project is shovel ready. In fact, references have been made to Lendlease being appointed. Well, they haven't been appointed to actually do the construction yet, only the early planning. There still needs to be more procurement done for the actual construction component of the project.

Time expired.