Women's and Children's Hospital

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Planning. Has the minister referred the government's new Women's and Children's Hospital development to the federal environment minister for approval under the commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and, if not, why not? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BATTY: The Adelaide Parklands have been nationally heritage listed since 2008. Actions that will have a significant impact on their heritage value may trigger an obligation of referral under the commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:37): Thank you very much for the question. I'm happy to confirm what we have said all along since the beginning, which is that we very much understand the role in terms of the commonwealth government and that we make the appropriate referrals to the federal minister to consider, but it is worth noting and it is worth remembering that the new Women's and Children's Hospital is going to result in a net increase in additional useable parkland space.

If you go down near the jail at the moment, there is land behind barbed wire fences, there is rubbish all over the place and there are storage areas for the council. Part of the development of the new hospital is to uplift that Parklands area to be useable space for families, for people to recreate and for playgrounds to be established all through that area. This is a significant improvement for that Parklands area, so not only are we going to see a bigger and better new Women's and Children's Hospital, rather than what was proposed previously, which was going to have one extra overnight paediatric bed compared to the current hospital, but we are going to see significant uplift in terms of beds for the hospital and also significant uplift in terms of usable, accessible Parkland space around the hospital.