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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-26 Daily Xml
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ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:52): My question is again—

The Hon. K.O. Foley interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: —to the Minister for Health. Why has the government failed to mention the proposal for a boutique hotel on the Royal Adelaide Hospital site in its report to the Adelaide City Council, as required by section 23 of the Adelaide Park Lands Act, and will he now be tabling and providing a further report incorporating that proposal?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:53): Once again I refer the deputy leader to the comments I made to the house yesterday in a ministerial statement. I said in that ministerial statement that we are going through a master planning exercise and that Adelaide University was interested in obtaining access to a number of the heritage buildings along Frome Road. I said that we were interested in putting arts organisations, perhaps, in some of those buildings and that there was an exercise in place to determine what the best outcome would be. The land that would be freed up by the demolition of the fifties and sixties buildings would be returned to the Botanic Gardens.

I further said that one option in the return of that land to the Botanic Gardens was to put services underneath the land so that events such as WOMADelaide, or WOMADelaide style events, or the Festival of Unearthly Delights, which is in the Parklands adjacent to East Terrace, could easily fit into a site such as that so that the trucks that have to bring in all the generation equipment and all the other things that are expensive and cause noise could already be installed. For most of the time it would be a botanic garden, but you could also plug in one of these kind of outdoor events.

I have had discussions along those lines, informal discussions, with Stephen Forbes from the Botanic Gardens. He and I thought that seemed like a way to go. These are just suggestions that I have made. Another suggestion which I made but which is not a plan is that one of the buildings, I thought the nurses quarters—I think the Margaret Graham Building; the building which was the nurses quarters—a beautiful heritage building, possibly could be a heritage boutique hotel along the lines of the Treasury Hotel which is near the town hall, but that is just an idea. It is not a proposition, a plan, a proposal: it is an idea. We are going through a—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The member for Heysen says that we're allowed to have ideas. Yes, we are allowed to have ideas. One of the hallmarks of this government is that we are a government of ideas, as opposed to the other side. They are an opposition of political gamesmanship. We do have ideas, we are open about ideas and we are discussing our ideas, and we are going through a planning process about what should happen on that site. We have no fixed views about that, other than heritage buildings will be protected and the Botanic Gardens will get most of the space when the buildings are pulled down. That is what we have said.

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