Tuesday, 12 May 2026

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:47): (1315) My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, when will the new emergency department for children at Maroondah Hospital commence operation?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:47): Thank you, Mr McGowan, for your question and for your interest in the delivery of health services across the state. You have spoken about health services across the state on a number of occasions. You have also spoken at length about Maroondah Hospital and about the work that we are continuing to do to support our workforce and to support an increase in the number of planned surgeries; the assistance that is provided to people through emergency admission, treatment, transfer and dispatch; and the work to provide often complex supports for people in a clinical and surgical response, as well as linkages to community health.

We will continue, as we have been, the planning for the new hospital at Maroondah, QE2, to make sure that with this really complex site we are able to deliver the new hospital which is fit for purpose, and that as we stage the delivery of these major hospital investments, we are making sure that we balance these builds with our broader –

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, if I can ask you to bring the minister to the very simple question. The question is when the emergency department for children will commence operation. It was, I will remind the minister, promised in 2019. The subsequent rebuild was promised in 2022 for $1.05 billion. It was also promised to commence the hospital rebuild, with the emergency department to commence in 2025 and begin operation in 2029. So I repeat: Minister, when will the emergency department for children commence operation?

Harriet SHING: Thank you, Mr McGowan. In your point of order, and I am going to use that to inform the further context that I provide to you – we have continued to invest in new hospitals. We have actually built 11 hospitals since we were elected. The only hospital –

David Davis interjected.

Harriet SHING: Mr Davis has just referred to the one hospital that the Liberals built? No, that is right – you have not because you have never built a hospital.

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, I appreciate the interjections do not assist. Nonetheless, the question is a very simple one. It is about the emergency department for children at Maroondah Hospital. The people in my community take it very seriously. They would like to know when it will commence operation.

The PRESIDENT: I will call the minister back to the question.

Harriet SHING: Maroondah Hospital is a really active healthcare environment. It is a really complex site that requires detailed design work and also planning to make sure that those works are sequenced appropriately to ensure that the hospital can also operate smoothly. Planning works continue so that the hospital we build, as I said, is fit for purpose and can meet the needs of the community within Eastern Health’s area of coverage.

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, again, I ask you to bring the minister back to the question of when the emergency department will commence operating. The planning money that the minister referred to actually expires at the end of June, and there is no money in the forward estimates whatsoever. So the simple question is: when will the emergency department for children commence operation?

The PRESIDENT: That is not a point of order. I believe the minister was relevant after your last point of order.

Harriet SHING: That planning work continues.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Harriet SHING: Ms Crozier, I am going to take you up on your interjection there. You said, ‘It’s not going to happen.’ Well, with $40 billion of cuts, nothing is going to be built under a coalition government. Do you know how we know that? It is because when you were in government you closed 12 hospitals, you sold off two more and then you prepared to flog the Austin –

Renee Heath: On a point of order, President, question time is not a time to attack the opposition. Stop gaslighting. I ask you to bring the minister back to answering the question.

The PRESIDENT: The first part of the point of order was correct, but the second part we will leave out. We will leave that bit out. There is a lot of noise in the chamber as well, so if people can come to order, that will be good as well.

Harriet SHING: We have built 11 hospitals. You closed 12. You sold off two more. We have employed 17,000 nurses. You went to war with them. We have invested billions of dollars this year, a record investment, in health, and you have got a $40 billion hole that will result in job cuts and no new hospital for Maroondah under – (Time expired)

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:52): Before the 2022 state election your government promised it would:

… invest between $850–$1,050 million in the new hospital, which will include a new emergency department (ED), operating theatres, day procedure facilities and specialist care spaces. It will also feature an expanded medical imaging unit and two six-story in-patient towers, housing more than 200 extra beds.

You also promised – and I quote from your press release at the time – that:

The Queen Elizabeth II hospital –

we will not get started with the title –

will be able to treat an extra 9,000 in-patients including 22,400 emergency presentations.

You went on in your press release to say:

Construction is expected to start in 2025, and around 2,500 jobs will be created …

Minister, how do you deliver these increases in in-patients and emergency department presentations if the funding has not even been provided to build this hospital?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:53): We deliver on the new builds, Mr McGowan, that you will see around the state every single day, whether it is the new Footscray Hospital, the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital, the community hospitals or the work that we are doing to deliver on the Peninsula hospital.

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, I want to point out to the minister that the Joan Kirner hospital is in the western suburbs. We are in the eastern suburbs in Maroondah. It is not actually relevant to the question I asked, which was: how are you going to treat an additional 9000 inpatients and 22,400 emergency presentations if you have not even got one cent of funding for the hospital in the forward estimates?

The PRESIDENT: It is not a point of order.

Harriet SHING: You did talk about the western suburbs, Mr McGowan. Let me take you down to the south-east, where Monash Health is in the process of a $500 million upgrade, and then around to Barwon, which again has half a billion dollars in upgrades there. We will see multilevel towers, including with multiple floors for maternity and birthing services. Again, Mr McGowan, we will continue doing that because we build things. In order to build things you have to plan, and in order to build things you have to borrow –

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, again I would ask you to bring the minister back to the question. I appreciate there are other hospitals in this state, but the hospital I am asking about is Maroondah, and Maroondah Hospital does not just service the eastern suburbs, it goes right out beyond the district as far as Lilydale and even further afield. I would ask you to bring the minister back to the question, for the good of the citizens in Maroondah and the surrounding districts.

The PRESIDENT: I believe the minister was being relevant to the question.

Harriet SHING: We are going to continue to build hospitals, and we are going to do that, including with a record investment through health infrastructure by Minister Horne in the other place. We are also going to do that through borrowing. None of this is going to happen under you as the state grinds to a halt and people have nowhere to go for the health care that they so deserve as the population grows.