Question Time

Women's and Children's Hospital

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:47): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding the Women's and Children's Hospital.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: The budget allocated only $550 million for the Women's and Children's Hospital, which the government itself has admitted is less than it needs to complete. The SA Health website previously said that the Women's and Children's task force would identify the capital cost of the project by the end of 2018. This has recently been deleted from the website. The Premier told the other place that there is nothing in the cost estimates that we have received to date that would scare us.

My question to the minister is: what are the cost estimates the government has received for the new Women's and Children's Hospital, and on what date did the minister receive cost estimates for the Women's and Children's Hospital?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:48): The honourable member is criticising the government in terms of what he is suggesting is an inadequate commitment to this hospital. Let's remember the record of the former Labor government, which he was part of. They announced their commitment to the Women's and Children's Hospital in 2013. The 2014 budget: not a single dollar allocated to the project; 2015 budget: not a single dollar allocated to the project; 2016 budget: not a single dollar committed to the project; 2017: not a single dollar committed to the budget.

I am a relatively new minister. I have only been here for my second budget but I am very proud that in the second budget of the Marshall Liberal government we have committed $550 million to this project—$550 million. I don't want to start referring to Rob Lucas' doughnuts but $500 million has a lot more doughnuts after it than Labor's single zero—not a dollar over four budgets, not a single dollar. You are pathetic, absolutely pathetic. Let's think about how pathetic they are. When we were in the middle of the federal election campaign, the Malinauskas opposition got excited about $50 million. Mr Shorten, another failed Labor leader, promised $50 million—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: They were excited about that. In fact, what they put on their website is, 'This $50 million is a great opportunity to get this important project started'—$50 million and it is a great opportunity to get this project started. What happens today? The latest Labor post—I am not sure whether this is a post actually or whether this is just another rant by their leader—criticises us for a $550 million commitment to the project. So I am sorry, $550 million is more than 10 times. I won't go back to the honourable Rob Lucas' doughnuts, but all I can say is that I am very proud of the investment because we are doing the hard yards.

We are doing the planning for the project, we are consulting with clinicians and we are making sure that we get the finances right. Why would we be so careful? Let me give you 700 million reasons why we would be careful. Under this failed opposition, over 10 years they built a hospital at the end of North Terrace. It was about 17 months late, almost $700 million over budget and failed to have a whole lot of key clinical facilities—hybrid suites, we didn't even have adult changing places. We had a modern hospital which didn't even have basic disability access rights and they want to preach to me about how to build a hospital. No, thank you.