Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to rise in the Main Committee today to raise an issue of great importance in my electorate, which is the changes to the Glenside Hospital. The state government has decided to introduce changes to the Glenside Hospital, which is the mental health hospital in Adelaide. The Glenside campus has been in the hands of the public, as a public space, since 1836, when our city was founded and laid out. In all that time, every generation has maintained the Glenside campus for public activity—for the mental health institution that used to be there, which is now a proper hospital. It used to be an asylum many, many years ago, tragically, when we did not know better.

The state government’s Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Gail Gago, has decided to cut up the public land at Glenside Hospital. She is proposing changes to the mental health facilities and the introduction of housing for those people who have mental illnesses, and we welcome the fact that there is finally a focus by the South Australian state Labor government on issues to do with mental health. It is a smoke and mirrors trick, however, because the number of beds that will be available for patients in the newly developed hospital will actually be less than what is available now. One of the objectives of the state government was to put more services out on the ground for those people with mental illnesses. The effect of their changes is actually to have fewer services.

At the same time, they are selling off a huge percentage of the Glenside campus for housing development and for commercial and retail tenancies. In Glenside, an area very well served at the moment—

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