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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-01 Daily Xml
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ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (14:57): My question, again, is to the Minister for Health. Why did the initial environmental auditor from Sinclair Knight Merz, Mr Don McCarthy, quit the job in May 2011, and is there any connection between his removal from the position and concerns about the removal of highly contaminated waste from the RAH rail yard site?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:58): This is—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —truly a conspiracy theory. Let us deal with what we do know. What we do know is that this government is determined to clean the site up so that we can build a hospital there. If they had their way, they would be cleaning up the site to put a football stadium there; whatever we do, we have to clean it up. That is the first point. And we are going about cleaning it up. The consortium is responsible for cleaning it up. We have an arrangement in place where they have to pay for it unless there are areas where there are unforeseen pollutants. If there are, then we have some liability. To date we have not agreed that there is anything there that was unforeseen.

The way that we went through this is that we had extensive testing of the site in the 2008-10 area. In excess of 320 soil bores and 90 groundwater wells were drilled and sampled during this time. Testing was conducted by independent experts.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Just the issue of relevance, Madam Speaker. This question was specifically: why did the independent auditor quit? That is the question.

The SPEAKER: The minister can answer the question as he chooses, and it is relevant to the topic of the question. Minister, I would ask you, though, to keep to the substance of the question.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Well, I was attempting to, Madam Speaker, because the member suggested that it was a kind of a conspiracy theory being proposed. For some reason he—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —was linking the quitting of an environmental auditor with a pollution outcome down the track. If that's not conspiracy, Madam Speaker, tell me—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Thank you, order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The man who knows about dodgy documents should know about conspiracy theories. Let's put that one on the table, Madam Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! There is a point of order. The member for MacKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS: My point is both relevance and the minister is entering debate. It is a question to which the minister could quite easily have given a yes or no answer.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. I refer the minister back to the question. I uphold that.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: What I was trying to do, Madam Speaker, was to say that the work on the drilling, and the like, occurred in 2008 to 2010. I was aware somebody had retired, quit, resigned or left—I am not sure what the term is—but the work was done prior to that happening. Testing was conducted, as I was saying, by Coffey and the results were verified by Sinclair Knight Merz, which was the independent environmental auditor.

I am not sure what link the member can make. I have no evidence to connect them. He is obviously taking advice from somebody who was disgruntled. We know there was another party who wanted to get this contract and did not get it. He might have evidence: he should bring it forward.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. There is a point of order. Member for MacKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS: The minister cannot give an answer without entering debate. His comment that the member was obviously taking advice from somebody else is supposition. He is debating.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. Minister, I understand you have finished your question. That was debate. The member for Morialta.

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