SA's Flinders Medical Centre expansion project blows out by nearly $100m

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The cost of expanding the Flinders Medical Centre has blown out by almost $100 million. Treasurer Stephen Mullighan has revealed the price hike in his mid-year budget update blaming an increase in construction costs.

Transcript

00:00 It's a 136 bed upgrade of Adelaide's second largest public hospital, now costing taxpayers

00:09 almost half a billion dollars.

00:11 The budget for that project has increased from $400 million to $498 million.

00:16 The Treasurer blaming rising construction costs for the blowout, which both the state

00:20 and federal governments will have to bear.

00:23 When you're in a national environment where construction escalation is running somewhere

00:27 between 5 and 10 per cent, depending on what sort of project it is, it's natural that those

00:33 costs are going to be a little bit higher.

00:35 Also on the rise is the state's credit card bill.

00:37 South Australia is now on track to reach more than $38 billion worth of debt within the

00:43 next four years.

00:44 But it's set to claw back spending by slashing an electric vehicle subsidy.

00:49 Our contributions are no longer making a meaningful difference to people's decision making when

00:54 it comes to purchase new cars.

00:56 Missing from this year's mid-year budget update is cost of living relief.

00:59 Individual families are struggling.

01:01 They're struggling to be able to put food on their table, to be able to keep their electricity

01:06 and to make sure that they can afford presents over Christmas.

01:09 Alas, there was nothing in this year's mid-year review that actually gave any relief for that

01:13 group or an indication that the government might move on that in the future.

01:17 Mr Mulligan says the government is open to providing more support.

01:21 One of the other benefits of having a budget in surplus is it gives us more capacity to

01:27 provide support for people in the community if we expect these cost of living pressures

01:32 to persist for longer than we would like.

01:34 But critics say that's cold comfort for families struggling this Christmas.

01:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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