Adelaide Hills Health Services

Mr FULBROOK (Playford) (14:43): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister advise the house about upgrades to health services in the Adelaide Hills and is the minister aware of any opposition to these upgrades?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:43): I thank the member for Playford and I thank you, Speaker, as well and note your very significant interest in this area. As only you, sir, know too well, the population in the Mount Barker region is going up and up and up and is expected to double from where it was in 2006 to 2036. But over that rapid population growth that we have seen over the previous decades in Mount Barker, the number of hospital beds that has been in Mount Barker has not changed. The number of hospital beds has been the same at 34, even when the population was a small percentage of what it is today, let alone the growth that is to come.

So we very clearly made the decision before the election, implementing now, that we actually needed to address these long-term challenges in terms of people's access to health care in the Adelaide Hills. I know that this has been an issue, sir, for your constituents for some time, that with the population growth there hadn't been the infrastructure investments to meet those long-term challenges, and that is why we believed that this was absolutely needed.

I am very delighted that the work on the new Mount Barker hospital is progressing. Just last Tuesday, we had the Consumer and Community Reference Group, and over 50 people have registered to be part of that consultation process, who are consulting with the community about the plans for that hospital to make sure that it is met in the long term.

The member for Playford asked me if there is any opposition to this. Certainly, I haven't encountered any from the Adelaide Hills community, where people are very thankful for it, but sadly there is some opposition from within this chamber to all this. I just could not believe it. Sadly, there was a member of this house who went to a public meeting in his own electorate in the past couple of weeks and maybe thought it was Chatham House rules, that no-one would notice what was being said; however, it was being streamed and we have been able to obtain the vision.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The master tactician, minister, was the member for Finniss. The member for Finniss—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: The man we fear.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —the man we fear—in his opening remarks at this public forum said:

All of a sudden we see, you know, Mount Barker, for example, purely a political decision that's been made to build a hospital—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: They agree—

in a very quick response rather than actually the long-term planning.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members, it might surprise you to know that I am very keen to hear the answer.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The member for Finniss goes on to say, 'Hopefully, it doesn't go wrong, but when you make decisions like that they can go wrong.' Here we have the member for Finniss, and in fact he was not the sole member of the opposition at this forum. The member for Schubert and the member for Frome were there as well; they did not get up to object to such scandalous talk about the new Mount Barker hospital.

I would challenge them to go to Mount Barker, sir, to go to your community and say that they believe that this was not in terms of long-term planning for the Adelaide Hills, to say that this was just a political decision and to say that decisions like this can go wrong. As you know, sir, people in Mount Barker have been calling for this long-term investment for many decades and are thankful that it's finally happening, and it's disgraceful that it is opposed by those opposite, and presumably it would be under risk if they were to win the next election.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Heysen is seeking the call.

Mr TEAGUE: Standing order 98: clearly the minister is debating the question. He may be hell-bent on attempting to impress the Chair, but it won't do him any good in accordance with the standing orders. He is in breach of the standing orders by attempting to debate the matter and—

The SPEAKER: What is the—

Mr TEAGUE: —he ought to be brought back into line with the standing orders.

The SPEAKER: Member for Heysen, what is the point of order? Is it 98? The contribution has concluded and, let me tell you, he is impressing me a good deal more than you—a good deal more than you.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I will not entertain spurious points of order. Once a contribution has concluded—I am on my feet and the chamber will be silent. The time for a point of order, as we all well know, is during the contribution, not as a speech or contribution sometime afterwards. Is there a member to the left seeking the call? Member for Morphett.