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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-03 Daily Xml
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New Women's and Children's Hospital Bill

Committee Stage

In committee (resumed on motion).

Clause 1.

Mr TEAGUE: In commencing my contribution in this regard before the last pause, I got to the point in the context of the South Australian Heritage Council's 13 October letter to the Deputy Premier. It indicated not only the South Australian Heritage Council's observations about the unprecedented nature of the decision, and the consequences being the demolition of the State Heritage Places, the 10 buildings within that barracks precinct, but then identified those two areas of work that are identified by the state Heritage Council as critical.

The state Heritage Council is being practical about this and perhaps contemplating that it is only going to get one opportunity to address the minister for heritage prior to the legislation being debated, such is the haste with which the government is progressing. It has put it all out there, not so as to say that this is the State Heritage Council's preference—far from it—but to indicate those things that ought to be at the very minimum completed by the government.

While the state Heritage Council does not address it specifically in the letter, it would seem to flow directly from this letter that the next question is: what are the moneys that are set aside to do this work? That is, the capturing of the heritage and the archaeological investigations—and that might be subject to some questions in a moment. But just to place this in the appropriate context, that is, of a debate that is being jammed into a period of days, the government suspended standing orders in the house yesterday, forced on debate yesterday and is now jamming it into every available gap in proceedings today with a view to running out the door with the shovels.

This comes not only in the context of the 40 years that the State Heritage Council is talking about but also the context of the 2005 act which represented a culmination of the work on the Labor side, characterised by what Chris Sumner described this morning as Dunstan-ite, Bannon-ite, Rann-ite unifying approaches to consideration of the Parklands, which similarly extends to heritage in this context.

There, Chris Sumner, in his observations on ABC radio this morning, is lamenting what appears to be this unfortunate fault line that seems to have emerged in the government between those who would make fulsome commitments on the one hand—and it is not me saying it but the Deputy Premier in her capacity as minister for heritage. There has been significant reference to it, making all sorts of very explicit commitments on the one hand, and the member for Adelaide in the lead-up to the election making multigenerational commitments to the preservation of these things, and now we see the government coming along and taking an urgent different approach.

We are all in favour of a Women's and Children's Hospital being built, and we would love to be in that space. While we are debating a planning act and a heritage act—and I would love to have the minister for heritage sitting across the way here to address this—the very least that Chris Sumner and all of us, and all South Australians are asking for, and dare I say entitled to, is that there be some meaningful and thoroughgoing response to this state Heritage Council's request for those two issues.

I ask the minister, if we cannot have even a committee of inquiry for a week or two in the context of this correspondence being out there and directed to the minister for heritage, can we at least have a thoroughgoing response in this committee to the question of how those things are going to be addressed, what they are going to cost and how we can, as it were, somehow get to a reset in what has been a recent disturbance of faith in the commitment to custodianship on the government's behalf of both the Parklands and heritage?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I reiterate my answer to previous questions and statements from the member for Heysen and others in reiterating that the letter that has been written by the Heritage Council is being considered and work is underway between the Department for Environment and Water and the new Women's and Children's Hospital project team in relation to those heritage concerns and suggestions that have been raised by the Heritage Council as the process for the project is continuing.

The CHAIR: Member for Heysen, this is your third and last contribution on this clause.

Mr TEAGUE: Thanks very much, Chair. This is an opportunity for the minister to make it really explicitly and abundantly clear that there is no answer, therefore, to the question of how much money has been set aside—no answer—and indeed whether or not there is to be any undertaking in response to those two particular matters that were raised in some detail, nearly a month ago now, by the state Heritage Council.

Again, and I will be corrected, I am not trying to be somehow unnecessarily rigorous about this, but in what has been a really short time line we have the 13 October letter from the state Heritage Council in the context of a commitment of $2 million to police to search for a new place to keep the horses. We also have a part 5 of this bill which has been produced and which arrived a couple of weeks ago, after that money was committed, yet we do not have an answer on money for these works or indeed whether or not they are going to be done, but we have a resistance to any proposal to preserve them—that has been ruled out—and there has been resistance to any proposal to pick up and move them—that has been ruled out.

Again, I am not asking the minister for heritage for a response to the letter to that minister—that is a matter for the minister, arguably—but here we are with a bill that talks about a move of police in circumstances where money has been provided to assist them to look at all options. There is nothing, however, that addresses these coherently—if I might say, with respect to the chair of the council—as set out in the 13 October letter.

Is there not a dollar amount? Is there not a plan of any kind that might be aired? If not, why can we not possibly have a committee to get to grips with this and to give South Australian people the sort of confidence that Chris Sumner and others have spoken about? You have to bring the South Australian people along.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I certainly do not accept the premise of the question as it relates to the funding that has been provided in relation to the move for South Australia Police. The suggestion I think was made that the funding was somehow made in the last couple of weeks subsequent to the bill's production, or thereabouts. It was always considered as part of the process in determining the government's decision in relation to proceeding on the barracks site.

It clearly was a pivotal path in terms of being able to undertake this work that we would have to establish a police premises elsewhere, and to do that we would need to provide the police the requisite funding to undertake a business case and other planning work that is necessary for the relocation of those services that are currently on the barracks site.

That was a determination that was made some time ago in conjunction with the decision of the government to proceed down this path. In relation to the letter that has been produced, as I said and have reiterated a few times, this is going to be closely considered by the government between the Department for Environment and Water and the heritage branch and the new Women's and Children's Hospital project team. We will be working with the Heritage Council in relation to that.

There is a lot of work that clearly has to be done in terms of considering the matters that have been raised and also considering at what point some of those things may be considered in relation to when access will be available to the barracks site, because it is obviously still a working premises at the moment. All of those things are being worked through at the moment and considered very thoroughly.

Clause passed.

Clause 2.

Mrs HURN: I have a question in relation to the commencement because of course throughout the entire journey of this debate the government has really tried to give this strong sense of urgency about the need to get this bill through, because this bill is in some way going to kickstart the construction of the new Women's and Children's Hospital.

What we know is that the access to the site and some of the detailed works that will be happening on the site are only going to be required by the last bit of next year. That is why it is interesting to talk about the commencement date. I wonder whether the minister can give us an update or an understanding as to what action will happen on the site once this act, presumably, is proclaimed.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: As the member will be able to read, this clause sets the date to be fixed by proclamation. That is the date that the government will be seeking to proceed with as soon as we are able to proceed through the parliament, which is likely to be the next sitting week given the time now.

In terms of site works, there will be significant investigation works that will be happening relatively quickly and, in addition, obviously this now allows us the pathway to have the approvals in place to start the procurement, planning and detailed works that we need to do to get the enabling works underway in the middle of next year, as well as get the early works underway as soon as possible.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

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