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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-27 Daily Xml
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GLENSIDE HOSPITAL

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:00): I rise, not on a matter of interest, but a matter of regret, a sadness. A mark of civilisation is that we look after each other. We stand up for each other: for the elderly, literally, when they need his seat on public transport. A civilised society looks after the ill and the sick. Australia's 100-year history of public hospitals, of making medical treatment available to people who need it, not just those who can afford it, has been an honourable and compassionate tradition. So it is with melancholy that I bring to the attention of the parliament the story of how South Australia—a state with a proud tradition of social justice—has put illusion and chimera ahead of honour and compassion.

The story starts with the Buffalo in 1836. Historians say that, while South Australia was a planned colony, the selection process for the early colonists—well, it lacked rigour is the official account. A small but significant number of elderly, poor, chronically ill and those suffering from mental illness arrived in the colony. As a result, the governor and the representatives of the government found themselves required to care for the sick, the destitute and the mentally ill. That was in 1836 and the people with mental illness—lunatics as they were called—were among the first guests of the newly built Adelaide Gaol.

A special ward was set aside for the insane, and in 1841 a government board of pauper lunatics was set up. By 1846, the government had rented a house with eight rooms and a small cottage in Parkside, and nine inmates were transferred from the Adelaide gaol. It was a start but not a finish. There was a government commission; that is how seriously the colonial government treated mental illness. There is a lot to do in the young colony: railways to build, ports, whole suburbs to be carved from the bush but still, in 1864, a civilised government appointed a civilised commission to look into the management of the Adelaide Lunatic Asylum on North Terrace.

It was too crowded and inadequate, so a new one was built, and it was a proud moment for the colony of South Australia when the Parkside Lunatic Asylum opened in 1870. Of course, we know it now as the Glenside Psychiatric Hospital. Over almost a century and a half, thousands of sick South Australians were given help here at public expense. They were sick surely as people with an infection are sick. There is no difference between physical illness and mental illness except one is easy to see and the other is impossible to bear alone.

But civilisation is being stripped aside in today's South Australia. In September three years ago, South Australia redefined the word 'culture'. It would no longer being caring and treating and, where possible, curing the mentally ill. That was expunged from this uncivilised government dictionary. Now 'culture' would mean 'a cultural precinct'. The Glenside Psychiatric Hospital was an asset to be stripped. Nearly half the hospital grounds have been sold. The grass and lawns where patients regained their health and their strength are being replaced with shops, commercial development and private housing and a cultural precinct.

One of those developments is the so-called Film Hub, a $45 million delusion of grandeur. South Australia is building this monument—this Spark de Triomphe—right now, and it is nearly finished. Meanwhile, the replacement medical treatment facilities (the hospital for the mentally ill) was delayed for almost two years as a budget measure.

It is our land; public land; land which was handed onto this generation by the previous generation and the one before that, being sold by an uncivilised state which devalues our children and the next generation, and it devalues the mentally ill. In fact, it devalues us all. This is the third anniversary of that fateful decision. This is a time to remember the Buffalo, the old Adelaide Gaol and the Parkside Lunatic Asylum, and a government that cared. This is a time to regret.

Time expired.

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