Question Time

New Women's and Children's Hospital

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. Was the Women's and Children's Health Network governing board given an update from the executive lead of the new Women's and Children's Hospital project on 14 November that the new hospital would not be completed until 2033-34? If so, why?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:10): Thank you; I appreciate the opportunity to answer a question in terms of what is a very exciting project for the future of our state in building the new Women's and Children's Hospital. This is a hospital that is going to be bigger and better and meet the needs of our state for many, many years to come—as opposed to the previous plans, which were for a hospital that was going to have one extra bed and not be fit for purpose whatsoever.

Obviously I was not at the Women's and Children's Hospital meeting where that took place, but I have spoken since to various people since the newspaper article this morning, and all the advice to me is that we are still on track for our expected completion date by 2031. We are working as hard and fast as we possibly can on this project, and the evidence is there. Just go down and have a look on Port Road: you can see for yourself the progress we have made of clearing the site, of construction works underway already.

This is a project that has been talked about for decades, through a series of different governments. When the Leader of the Opposition was around the cabinet table, they promised that the hospital was going to be open by 2024; well, when we got to government in 2022 this was a hospital where not one sod had been turned. Nothing had been done to start the construction of this hospital, even though, supposedly, it was going to be complete by 2024.

We are absolutely serious about delivering this hospital, but also making sure that it meets needs both now and into the future. Building a hospital with one extra bed just would not have met the needs of this state; it would have been full on the day it opened. We have learnt the lessons from previous investments in hospitals that we need to make sure we have additional capacity in them now, but also the capacity to expand into the future as well.

That is why we ordered the Hallion review when we came to government, that is why the Hallion review very clearly set out that we needed to look at an additional new site in the biomedical precinct, and that is why we adopted that site.

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order, sir: standing order 98(a). The question to the minister was whether the governing board had given an update. The minister has said he wasn't at the meeting, but he is now going on to debate the question and avoid the answer. The minister needs to answer the question.

The SPEAKER: He is answering the question, and you will sit down, thanks, Deputy Leader. The Minister for Health, please continue your answer.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Thank you very much, sir. This is a hospital that is on that new site, allowing us to increase the capacity of those additional beds. It also means that we can keep the additional expansion space for the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which we know, at some stage in the future, will need to expand as well.

The government has taken the delivery of this project very seriously. Cabinet appointed, in 2022, an executive steering committee of the most senior levels of public servants to have oversight of the delivery of this project, that being the Chief Executive of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, the Chief Executive of the Department of Treasury and Finance, and the Chief Executive of the Department for Health and Wellbeing. They are the executives who have oversight of delivery of this project. They meet very regularly to examine the project's progress, examine the issues in relation to this project, and make sure it is on track.

We will continue, obviously, to make decisions along the way in terms of meeting the needs of clinicians, of patients, of making sure that we get this hospital right. As the Premier and I have both said clearly in the past, of course there are bumps along the way in terms of delivery of a major project like this, but when it comes to the delivery date, the advice that we have is that that is on track by 2031, as we originally said.