HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-25 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Health. Following our radio interview this morning and the minister's promise to me on radio, will he now release the engineers' reports—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: —on the proposed site at the rail yards hospital?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:04): I am very pleased that the deputy leader has asked this question because she and her supporters in the media have alleged that we are planning to build the new RAH on the railway site—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —which she claims—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley is warned a second time.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I just say to the member for Unley: the proposition that there is a fault line under the proposed hospital site is untrue, and this is an untruth that has been stated multiple times by those on the other side of the house. It is untrue. There is no fault line—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for MacKillop is warned a second time.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: There is no fault line under the RAH; that is what our engineers have told us, and I have made that plain on a number of occasions over the past year, yet the opposition continues to make the same misleading statement. They continue to say there is a fault line under there. Why do they say that? It is very interesting, Mr Speaker.

Ms CHAPMAN: On a point of order, my question was very clearly about a breach of promise, which I am not going to sue you for. Is he going to give us the reports or isn't he?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. The Minister for Health.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It appeared that all my nightmares had come at once, to think that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition would rely on a 19thcentury proposition law to attack me. As if I would ever have made a promise, such as the one she is suggesting, that I would breach in the future. Let me go through the point. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the opposition have repeatedly said that the hospital that we are planning to build is on a fault line. This is untrue.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Bignell interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Mawson will contain himself as well.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition continues to say that there is a fault line there; it is untrue. The reason that she continues to make this point is because she is trying to draw attention away from a fundamental flaw with the existing RAH. The RAH is not built to contemporary earthquake standards. If there were a significant earthquake in Adelaide, whether the hospital is down the road or on the current site, it would interfere with the RAH, wherever it happened to be. If there was a significant earthquake in Adelaide, the—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is on very thin ice. The Minister for Health.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The earthquake fault line definitely runs underneath the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. If there were a significant earthquake in Adelaide, the RAH, as it is currently built, cannot be made earthquake proof to contemporary standards. It would not fall down; it will not do that. I am not proposing that it would fall down, but it would be significantly affected. It could no longer be run as a hospital.

Therefore, in the event of a major earthquake in Adelaide, the major hospital supplying health services to Adelaide could not be used. That is a significant reality. Any new hospital buildings we build have to be made, to contemporary standards, earthquake proof. The new hospital down the road will be made to those standards; so, it will be earthquake proof. If there is an earthquake in Adelaide, even if there were a fault line under the hospital, which there is not, the hospital would stand up and be able to continue running services, in complete contradiction to the position put by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I have every intention of fulfilling—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —my promise made to the deputy leader on the radio this morning.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT