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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-14 Daily Xml
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GLENSIDE HOSPITAL REDEVELOPMENT

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:29): Today, the French celebrate Bastille Day. It is an occasion on which I make the observation of the oft quoted, 'The more things change, the more they stay the same.' Samela Harris wrote in The Advertiser on Wednesday 17 February 1999, which is over 10 years ago, in respect of a proposal submitted to the then government to sell the Glenside Hospital site. She made this observation in her article, 'But now it's the age of deinstitutionalisation.' Further:

Many people have written about it. Few, if any, have found merit in it, since it is another of the compassionless blows of economic rationalism which puts money first and people last. So now we have a government looking for ways to 'deinstitutionalise' its sick. It is acting on a model which enjoyed some popularity overseas. Briefly. Hearing from the United Kingdom, deinstitutionalisation has been judged a disaster.

However, once the bureaucrats and pollies make up their minds, a project must and will go forth. And I see the juggernaut now, mowing down Glenside and all who rested in her. I see it, without a backward glance, justifying its actions with lots of lovely rhetoric about community care, prevention, support...Its plan to set up Extended Care Services with Mobile Assertive Care services and forensic services. It also talks of services to the elderly.

Later she says:

...and thus should we all be worrying. This sort of government action should not be taken passively. It is time everyone pricked up their ears and cared about the fate of the mentally ill—or the potential consequences of having severely disturbed people shunted out to the 'burbs to rely on house calls.

Whatever it says, the government wants to close Glenside and damn the consequences.

Here we are again—10 years later—with a government that is actioning just that promise. The previous government did not follow that recommendation and maintained the site. This government has decided to sell off half to build a new supermarket and private housing and to shove people out into the community.

Already we have had a select committee that says this is wrong. The design is wrong and the approach is wrong. The property should not be sold. There are urgent and pressing needs for mental health services. We have a DPA which suggests that 10,000 vehicles a day will go in and out of this site and that it will chop up 200 significant trees and interfere with up to 2,000 trees and native vegetation on the site. It is a travesty by anyone's assessment.

The only people who are keen on this project are the property developers—with whom we are in court at the moment because they will not produce documents, under the direction of the Ombudsman—and the government. They are the parties that want to press ahead with this proposal.

Well, there are human consequences, and I want to reiterate a couple of them today. During estimates the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse confirmed that the chapel, which has been the place of worship for over 50 years at the Glenside Hospital site, is to be taken over, renovated and converted for use by the film corporation. We know about the Premier's $43 million toy, his little play thing, to set up a film hub. I suggest that it is absolutely obscene that even God is now being evicted from the chapel! All the patients are out. The services have to be moved out because they need it for a film corporation.

A more pressing need would be for the patients and the staff who work under those stressful circumstances to be able to continue to occupy their own chapel. The minister said that it doesn't matter; it will happen in a couple of months and we will build them something else. Well, there is nothing in the Public Works Committee report for a place of worship to replace this chapel.

If that is not bad enough, just this week I heard about the plight of a mother in Port Lincoln. Her 47 year old daughter has been in institutional care, in and out of Glenside, since she was 19. They have placed her in a flat at Port Adelaide, without any supervision overnight. She has run away twice. She has a history of a serious schizophrenic condition. What is the government doing? It is throwing her out on the street. That is exactly the warning Samela Harris gave the community 10 years ago—and it is exactly what is happening today.

It is an absolute disgrace and I want this parliament to be aware that we will continue to fight this in the District Court. It can be Department of Health v Chapman. I will go all the way to the High Court, if necessary. We will oppose this sale and this obscene throwing out and decanting of people from this site—even out of their own church. It is an absolute, obscene, disgusting approach by the government, and we will do everything we can to stop it.

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