New Women's and Children's Hospital

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Will the new Women's and Children's Hospital be delivered according to the timeline and cost outlined in the 2025-26 state budget? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: The 2025-26 budget has outlined that the project will be delivered by 2031 at a cost of $3.2 billion, yet Department for Health and Wellbeing officials told the Budget and Finance Committee recently:

We are only in the concept design stage at the moment, which means basically we are at 20 per cent design for the project. So there is a long way to go to actually finalise costs…

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:30): I thank the member for Schubert for her question. This is a project that this government is exceptionally proud of, because we made a strategic decision to act to build a bigger and better Women's and Children's Hospital than what was originally planned: more beds, more services, more scope into the future to grow as our population and the needs of our women and children in this state grow.

What we inherited was a situation where this hospital had been kicking along for years and years under successive governments with no action underway because the site was too small, and that was nobody's fault. The site was too small to fit the hospital on, so nothing had been done, no construction had started and the needs of the clinicians were not going to be met—and, importantly, the Royal Adelaide Hospital would have lost its expansion space if we had built it on that site.

So the government made what was a courageous decision—there was a lot of controversy at the time, as people will recall—to take over the police barracks site and enable the hospital to be built on a bigger and better site. It enables the RAH to expand in the future. It enables the Women's and Children's to expand in the future. You only have to drive down Port Road right now to see the cranes up and work underway on this project, which has been talked about since 2013.

Work is now underway and we are very confident in terms of the timeline to complete this project by the end of 2031. That's still six years away. There is a long time between now and then. Work is underway. There is a lot of very detailed work in terms of other elements of the design of the internals of the hospital, which is underway at the moment, but we are very confident in terms of those timelines for the end of 2031.

In terms of the budget, we have allocated $3.2 billion. We have made clear in many media interviews over the past year or so, and in this place as well, that we know construction budgets are under pressure all over the world. We know that during the course of mid to late next year is when the construction procurement and contracts will be done for that project. We will, of course, be making sure that we are getting the best possible outcome for the future of women and children in this state and, of course, balancing that with the needs of taxpayers as well.

We need this to be a hospital that is going to last and deliver for this state into the long term, and that is our priority with this project. We are delighted with the stage 2 architects that we have on board, who have been working really well with clinicians. We have an excellent team who are working on this project. The works that you can see in terms of the car park, and also the initial infrastructure works, are proceeding really well on that site. There is going to be a lot more work happening on that site through the course of next year as well, and this is ultimately going to deliver a hospital that will serve women and children in this state well into the future.

That compares to a hospital that was originally going to be built with just one extra overnight bed. The original proposal that we inherited from those opposite was one extra overnight bed. That would not have delivered the capacity that we need. It would have been full by the day it opened, it would have taken away the Royal Adelaide's expansion space and it would have meant we simply would not have been able to deliver for women and children and the needs they will have into the future. That's why we have taken this strategic decision, that's why we have got on with the project, that's why you can see that construction work underway and that's why we are confident in terms of that timeline for six years' time.