Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the minister for health several questions on the GP Super Clinics Program. I would like the minister to explain, firstly, where the $44 million of uncommitted funding within the GP Super Clinics Program was found. I would also like the minister to explain why the government has bailed out the Mount Isa GP superclinic for $2.5 million, the Redcliffe GP superclinic for $5 million and then a further $2.5 million, and has provided additional money to the Wallan and Ballan GP superclinics. Given that there was $44 million in the GP Super Clinics Program that could be removed, why did the government decide not to give the Sorell GP superclinic the $1.2 million extra funding they were asking for to ensure that this GP superclinic went ahead? I would like the minister to address whether she thinks the waste of $500,000 on the scrapped, failed, GP superclinic at Sorell represents value for taxpayers money. Would it not have been more prudent to have provided the additional $1.2 million that the Sorell superclinic was asking for than to waste $500,000 completely? I would like the minister to address whether the outstanding $570,000 has been returned to the Commonwealth. I ask the minister if she can confirm that the department actually has no system to process the refund, as has been stated in the media, and I ask the minister whether she thinks that replacing the walls between doctors' treatment rooms with curtains would have provided suitable privacy and treatment spaces for patients seen at the Sorell GP superclinic?

If she thinks that this is not appropriate, is the minister concerned that this was an instruction from her department to the Sorell GP superclinic architect to save costs?

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