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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-02 Daily Xml
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Bills

New Women's and Children's Hospital Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (17:37): This is always a fascinating experience because you have your well thought-out speech and then you have to seek leave to continue your remarks, so I might start again almost from scratch because it was an important point that I was making, which is that I did want to put on the record the opposition's very clear commitment to supporting the establishment and construction of a new Women's and Children's Hospital here in South Australia. It is remarkably clear that there is no equivocation from those on this side of the chamber, that we believe that South Australians deserve a world-class Women's and Children's Hospital.

In fact, it was the former Liberal government that had plans in place to build a hospital. Under those plans, we should be seeing shovels in the ground ready for a construction process by the end of the year, with delivery of the project by 2026-27, but it was this Labor government, having come to power in March 2022, that threw those plans out and said, 'No, back to the drawing board.' That has really caused some extraordinary and very significant delays.

I suppose one of the most disappointing things about how this whole bill has been structured and perceived publicly is that the government has set this up as being a health bill, but the reality is that it is far from a health bill. It is a planning bill, pure and simple, but anyone who dares to ask a question on it the government claim is therefore against the establishment of a new Women's and Children's Hospital and that simply could not be any further from the truth; in fact, I think that that is absolute nonsense.

According to the government, if you ask a question on it you are against it. You cannot have the Parklands and you cannot have a hospital; it is one or the other. Frankly, I think that they have deliberately tried to set up this faux us v them debate, and it is pathetic politics. That is, of course, what we are used to from the Labor Party.

I have made reference to this, but the government has named the bill the New Women's and Children's Hospital Bill even though there is not a single solitary clause or amendment to a health act. It is very clearly a planning bill relating to heritage and Parklands. My colleague the member for Flinders will be making some very detailed remarks in relation to our position that we have put forward and the series of amendments that we have already seen aerated in the other place.

The other concern that the opposition has relates to the significant delay. The people of South Australia are not going to be seeing this hospital this decade, so that is why I think we are so affronted by this sense of urgency that the government tries to fabricate publicly. Many of us have been involved in briefings from the government and, when questions were asked about what action needs to happen on this site to make sure the hospital can be delivered in 2032, the answer was that we need access to do something to a bike path next year. That is not to be flippant.

Again, I reiterate that we are very supportive of the establishment of a new Women's and Children's Hospital, but this process has been particularly disappointing—that the government is using its numbers to ram this through. But it does not represent an opposition from the Liberal Party here in South Australia. We are worried about the serious cost blowouts and we are worried about the completion delay and Labor's ability to deliver this project.

If we wind the clock back, it was the Labor Party that oversaw the delivery of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital here in South Australia. It was the Labor Party that presided over the disastrous Transforming Health policy here in South Australia. Of course, it was the Labor Party in South Australia that went to the election promising South Australians that they would fix ramping in this state, yet now we know the disastrous situation that is unfolding right before our eyes, and that is that ramping is the worst it has ever been.

Put simply, it shows that the Labor Party cannot be trusted when it comes to delivering health care and health solutions here in South Australia. We certainly continue to have the people of South Australia, the patients, the women and kids who will be coming through this hospital front of mind, but I am not sure that those opposite do. In fact, if we wind the clock back many years ago to October 2013, that was when the now government first promised a Women's and Children's Hospital. That is nine years ago, and right up until the 2018 election not a single solitary thing was done in relation to forging ahead with that Women's and Children's Hospital.

The Hon. C.J. Picton: What about the four years after that?

Mrs HURN: I always prefer not to respond to interjections, but the member for Kaurna has given me an excellent opportunity because he said, 'What about the four years after that?' There is this constant reinvention of history by those opposite on the government benches that the former government failed to act on this and we just reject that completely. There was lots of money spent on preparing a site for the construction. That is work that this new government is going to have to consider before they turn a single solitary sod—soil contamination, for example. They will have to do a range of works.

But it brings me back, I suppose, to the crux of our concern with this bill and the process of this bill. That is, as the member for Morialta has already established, the sense of urgency that has been placed on this bill is false because what this bill enables is work that we are only going to be seeing starting in the later part of next year. That is the concern we have and the very reasonable amendments that the opposition has put forward in no way represent an opposition to the construction of a Women's and Children's Hospital in South Australia. It is classic Labor to generate this us versus them mentality that we are continuing to see playing out publicly in this space.

So we absolutely support the construction of a new Women's and Children's Hospital. It was the strident ambition of the former government to do so and we wait with bated breath as to whether the new Labor government can deliver this new Women's and Children's Hospital by 2032 and within the eye-watering $3.2 billion price tag that this has attracted. One thing is certain: we support a Women's and Children's Hospital. It is the best thing for the people of South Australia, for the little kids and the mums who are wanting to use this facility. I end my remarks there.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (17:44): I rise to speak on this New Women's and Children's Hospital Bill 2022. Even the title itself is a bit misleading. The Liberal Party does believe that South Australian children deserve a world-class new Women's and Children's Hospital. Indeed, as has been well articulated by the member for Schubert, the previous Liberal government had plans in place and would have started construction right about now and it would have been completed by 2026-27.

Instead, we know that the Labor Party has chosen to review these plans and in fact has caused further delays. In the briefing that was received by the opposition, we were advised that no works would take place until later in 2023. To see the way that the Labor Party have been ramming this through parliament is disappointing as far as the process goes in this place, but seemingly it is the same pattern we have seen them following previously—arrogantly treating this place with disrespect.

The government has named this bill the New Women's and Children's Hospital Bill, even though there is not a single clause or a single amendment to make this a health act; it is indeed a planning act. If you were to flick your way through this bill, in no place does it actually mention health. It does not mention hospital, except in the title. There are a lot of things about development, a lot about process, a lot about planning, a lot about heritage, and a lot about zoning. There are no actual health aspects to this bill. It is a planning bill, yet we do not see the planning minister here: we see the health minister spruiking this bill as if there is some sort of choice to be made between proper process and delivering a world-class Women's and Children's Hospital.

This piece of legislation is unprecedented in our state's history and the arrogance is palpable. It gives the government of the day extraordinary powers. This bill vests specific power in the hands of the minister. It is not simply the removal of the state heritage protection value of the old police barracks, and it is our responsibility as legislators to consider the implications of this for all South Australians and the planning process of the state.

The government are asking South Australians to trust them when it comes to consultation on the project site, the planning approvals, the Planning and Design Code, the relocation of the Mounted Operations Unit into the Parklands, the demolition of the heritage-listed Thebarton barracks and, in clause 15 of the bill, the ability to modify or exclude any clause of any act. 'Trust us,' they say. 'Trust us,' the Minister for Health says. 'Trust us,' the Minister for Planning says. 'Trust us,' the Labor leader, Premier Malinauskas says. It has been deliberately rushed through to avoid scrutiny.

Once this bill is passed there is no additional requirement for scrutiny. The Labor Party have given themselves a blank canvas. In relation to consultation and these sorts of matters, I think it is very important to outline what the State Planning Commission requires of any development or changes to the code. Through changes to the Planning Act, which is now known as the Planning Development and Infrastructure Act 2016, or the PDI Act for those of us who know way too much about planning, we have a community engagement charter.

This document is quite a thorough document and it provides obligations on anybody who engages in changing zoning and the like within our planning system. It says that the following principles must be taken into account in relation to the preparation of such a document:

(a) members of the community should have reasonable, timely, meaningful and ongoing opportunities to gain access to information about proposals to introduce or change planning policies and to participate in relevant planning processes;

(b) community engagement should be weighted towards engagement at an early stage and scaled back when dealing with settled or advanced policy;

(c) information about planning issues should be in plain language, readily accessible and in a form that facilitates community participation;

(d) participation methods should seek to foster and encourage constructive dialogue, discussion and debate in relation to the development of relevant policies and strategies;

(e) participation methods should be appropriate, having regard to the significance and likely impact of relevant policies and strategies; and

(f) insofar as is reasonable, community should be provided with reasons for decisions associated with the development of planning policy, including how a community's views have been taken into account.

This is very prescriptive, very descriptive and very thorough because to go through a process like this is a significant change. There is a clear process that needs to be gone through for consultation. It is a standard that is set for every single development in South Australia.

The way this piece of legislation is constructed and we have been presented with in this place does not meet that test; therefore, we have amendments that will seek to do that in a number of ways. We are looking at having transparency. We want to have community engagement through the process. We want to make sure that a proper consultation process is followed. The Liberal Party has a series of amendments which we believe provide the right balance for providing transparency without slowing down the works.

Once again, we are keen to have a world-class new Women's and Children's Hospital in South Australia. It has always been the position of the Liberal Party to be supportive of having a new state-of-the-art build for women and kids in South Australia, but the proper process needs to be followed through. We need to make sure that we get the balance right between providing transparency and not slowing things down.

After all, if the government are going to undertake the consultation they promised they will—'Trust us,' they say—they will have to do the work anyway. Our amendments simply formalise those arrangements. This process is as blurred and uncertain a planning process as I have seen in all my years of looking through planning policy and planning amendments. There is no certainty on the impacts on communities. There is no certainty on what precedents this sets in dealing with heritage throughout our state.

We have seen a government that is not afraid to run roughshod over existing legislation, especially important legislation like we have in the Planning Development and Infrastructure Act. It is a sad state of affairs when you have a reactive, unengaged government in an area that is so important for communities in not just Adelaide but across the whole of the metropolitan area and across the state.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (17:53): I rise to contribute to the second reading debate. In the circumstances, I am glad to at least have that opportunity. The circumstances are that the government is apparently so averse to any form of scrutiny in the course of this debate that it not only rejected the calls from us in the other place to provide even a modicum of review, a committee review inquiry, into what is planned in relation to a bill that is going to provide extraordinary power to the minister but, just the very day after its passage through the other place, it has come along in here, suspended standing orders and forced the debate on to proceed this evening in what has become a bit of a pattern for this government.

Having seen a debate occur in the Legislative Council, then appearing to treat the House of Assembly as really a place where nothing more than a rubber stamp is expected for government legislation, I think all South Australians will be increasingly focused on the way in which this government is going about conducting business.

We have to be very careful not to jam things through, no matter how clearly the government wishes to politicise and define its political objectives. The reasonable scrutiny of not only the bill but also the consequences of the bill is really the very least that South Australians expect. As the shadow minister for health and wellbeing has emphasised and made clear, and the shadow minister for planning also, we on this side of the house want to see the building of the Women's and Children's Hospital. We have done important work to progress that in the course of the last years and our commitment to that build is steadfast and is maintained.

What we are disappointed about here is that we have been presented with a suddenly relocated project and a suddenly much more costly project and a suddenly much delayed project that is going to see a building possibly completed on the most heroic of ambitious timelines, not until some time into the next decade. And yet—

The Hon. C.J. Picton interjecting:

Mr TEAGUE: Well, it is true. We are told that we are not going to see this thing built until sometime in the next decade at the very earliest. In those circumstances, to be denied the opportunity to engage in a process of analysis about just how the minister might go about deigning to apply these extraordinary powers in the time that ensues is about the very least that South Australians—let alone those of us finding ourselves on this side of the house—I would think are entitled to ask.

I say to the government: just be careful because you are going to jam through some legislation that is going to put the ball completely in your court. A whole lot of discretionary power will be instantly conferred upon a minister and a complete change of the landscape as we have always known it. I just want to highlight in that regard a couple of areas in particular because, as I have said, it is not just us. The minister said I think as recently as this morning on the radio that unless this bill passes the parliament more or less today, then you will not have a hospital. You will not be able to get on with things. You will not be able to have—

The Hon. C.J. Picton: I'm not sure I said that.

Mr TEAGUE: Unless it jams through today, unless it jams through really, really fast then we will not be able to get on with the things that we are going to do—whether that is going to be the middle of next year or late next year. It is not as though we are all rushing down to the rail line with our shovels this evening, going about boring into those poor old barracks. It is not going to happen for at least several months from here, yet the aversion of the government to even that level of scrutiny really is truly astounding.

The CHAIR: Member for Heysen, I am sorry to interrupt your flow. I see you are warming up. Do you wish to seek leave to continue your remarks?

Mr TEAGUE: I will in just a moment.

The CHAIR: Or do you wish to finish your remarks?

Mr TEAGUE: I will seek leave in just a moment.

The CHAIR: No, sorry, you will either seek leave now to continue your remarks or we will actually call for an adjournment. What is it you wish to do?

Mr TEAGUE: I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


At 17:59 the house adjourned until Thursday 3 November 2022 at 11:00.


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