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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-03 Daily Xml
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JACKSON-NELSON, MRS M.

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:43): At Christmas time, I had the great fortune to take my son to the American Sports Museum in New York. As you would expect from a nation paying homage to its great sporting people and sporting legends, people such as Wayne Gretzky, the great ice hockey player, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Flo-Jo and Billie Jean King were honoured. As you walked through, it was American sports hero after American sports hero. We spent about 2½ hours there.

The Australian name which we came across was not Don Bradman or Phar Lap but our own great Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, who the Americans honour as one of the great pioneers in not just Australian women's sport but in world women's sport. I read the little write-up they had about Marjorie Jackson-Nelson. It said that so beloved is she in her home state of South Australia that they have named a hospital after her.

As a long-term friend of Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, when the decision was made to call the hospital after her I thought it was a wonderful thing to honour a great Australian, someone who has done so much for South Australia, in terms of not only being a role model for students as an athlete but also the Governor of our state, and the many people right across our state whose lives she has touched during her 78 years. I know that school children whom she would visit as the Governor loved meeting her and hearing her stories about winning her Olympic titles.

I think it is really sad, when you go to America and see how they look on Marjorie Jackson-Nelson—they think it is fantastic that we are honouring her by naming a hospital after her—to then come up against the small-mindedness led by the Liberal Party in this state, by people like Vickie Chapman (who I can say Marj does not think much of) for the way in which she has led the community in this state to really turn on Marjorie Jackson-Nelson. Marj has been quite hurt by many of the comments that have been made to her in public and also many of the things that she has heard on the radio. I ask some of those people who have led that sort of hatred against Marj to think about their own contribution to this state, this nation and this world and to think about what right they have to have a go at someone who has done so much for so many.

I look at a state where over the years we have named many of our hospitals after different people: the Flinders Medical Centre after an explorer; the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the old Queen Victoria hospital after royalty; and the Lyell McEwin Hospital in the northern suburbs after a former president of the upper house and health minister. I ask: why can we not recognise one of the great people of our times when we build a hospital of this magnitude?

These multi-billion dollar hospitals do not come along every generation, and we should be grateful that we are to get a brand new hospital in this state, which will contain mainly single-bed rooms so that people will not only have the best health care but also privacy and dignity. I think it is very important, when someone is in the health system having undergone surgery and going through the recovery process, not to have people coming in and out and people in the next bed experiencing pain and making noises and other bodily noises, which can be quite off-putting. I understand that 20 or 30 people share the one or two toilets that are on offer at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

I really think it is time that we as a society question why these people might have raised their objections so high and why they have been so offensive towards one of our great Australians. I ask the doctors to think about the patients of today and also those in the future who will benefit from the new hospital. I ask them not to worry about the empire building they have undertaken over the past several years, how big their office is and how much mahogany is in their desk, or whatever. I ask them to think about the needs of the patients and not their own needs.

Let us get on and come together as one in this state and get behind a brand new hospital that will serve not only the next generation but also many generations to come. I think it is a great thing to see $1.5 billion being spent on a new hospital. We are also doing up the Flinders Medical Centre and more money is going into the Noarlunga Hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Lyell McEwin Hospital. This time let us get behind this great health development.

Time expired.

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