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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-20 Daily Xml
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Highgate Park

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (15:09): My question is for the Minister for Human Services. Can the minister provide an update to the house on the sale of Highgate Park?

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services) (15:09): I thank the member for Davenport for the question. We have had many conversations about this very good piece of news for people with disability in South Australia. The last few months have marked a very significant period for people with disability. A review of the first 10 years of the NDIS has provided recommendations to change this scheme—one of our biggest social and economic reforms since Medicare—over the coming five years. We then had the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability also handing down its report after more than four years of work.

Almost 7,000 pages of material from the royal commission raised a number of issues around institutions and segregation, and South Australia has a history with these, like many places around the world. Once upon a time, institutions were a new and better way of providing care and support for people with significant disability. We saw this with the development of places like Minda and Strathmont and, of course, Highgate Park.

Highgate Park, also known as the Julia Farr Centre for many years, has a long history dating back to 1878 when Mrs Julia Farr founded a committee to focus on the needs of people with disability. A quite progressive and advanced woman in social policy for her time, she also founded what I believe is the first group home in South Australia called Farr House, previously known as Orphan Home—a home for girls.

More recently, the Highgate Park site in Fullarton has been home to an 11-level building, since the 1970s. This was developed to house more than 600 people who often had a combination of significant physical disability and complex medical needs. Some people lived in Highgate for almost their entire lives. I did work there in years gone by and I formed many friendships with staff and residents. In 2014, it was decided to close the facility, and the last resident transitioned to the community in 2020. Since then, both Labor and Liberal governments have worked towards selling the site. Just like the land and buildings themselves, any proceeds from the sale were to be held in a trust specifically for the benefit of people with disability.

Last month, we announced a fantastic outcome to this process with the site being sold for $42 million. The process was supported by a group of people with lived experience who will dictate and support the outcome for people with disability within the community in South Australia. The new owners will be developing a range of retirement and aged-care services on the site, and an advisory group will now work on how the funds will be invested and spent for the benefit of South Australians with disability.

I want to thank everyone who has been involved in the process, from DHS and also Renewal SA who did an excellent job working in partnership to get this outstanding result. To the organisations who bid for the site, thank you very much for your hard work and your support in the process. The site has a complex history, including both caring for people but also keeping people apart from their family and the community. To help acknowledge that complex history, I will be meeting with architects in the coming week who will be redesigning the site for the next phase of its life.

For those of you who knew the late Tracey Gibb, a former resident of Highgate, we might just make sure there is a little butterfly in that building, tucked away in the new site: a connection to the past. I look forward to updating the house as I work with the advisory group on how best we use the sale proceeds.

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