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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-05-14 Daily Xml
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New Women's and Children's Hospital

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:14): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier and/or his team received any advice that there is a delay in the completion date of the new Women's and Children's Hospital?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:14): As I previously said, the advice to us—and we have not only been getting those updates through the executive steering committee, those three most senior public servants, but also we get very regular updates through cabinet committees, including the Health Cabinet Committee and the Government Performance Cabinet Committee as well, on this progress. We certainly haven't received advice that we are any different from that 2031 date.

Of course these things will have to be managed, and of course there is always a risk with such a major public works and infrastructure project, which is so complex and has so many interests involved to get it right. But we continue to receive advice in terms of the timeframe, and we are still aiming for 2031 and it's on track for that.

We will continue to work as hard and fast as we can to deliver it, and the evidence for that is plain to see. Down on Port Road, you can see that the construction of that huge car park of 1,300 spaces is now underway. The first floor of that has been completed, the second floor is now underway, two huge tower cranes are part of that project now, the barracks site has now had all of the demolition works cleared, and major earthworks are beginning in terms of the delivery of the earthworks on that major site. We will continue to make sure that we can progress this hospital as fast as possible but also make sure that we get it right, because we want to make sure that this is a project that will deliver in the long term.

I am not sure what counterfactual the opposition would want. What is their policy prescription in terms of what they would do differently? Would they go back to putting it on the smaller site next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital? Would they say, 'We want to go to the smaller site'? We know that when we announced the bigger site we had the shadow minister out there criticising us, saying that it would have been fine on the site next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Maybe that is what this is all about: putting the groundwork there for them to cut this project, put it back next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, cut costs and leave kids and women in this state with a hospital that isn't going to meet the needs of the future.

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