Claims of a commitment to a new Barossa Hospital have been exposed as a mirage following the release of the Marshall Liberal Government’s Budget last week.

The Budget only allocates $5 million to buy land for the hospital in three years’ time – with no funding to build the hospital - putting any prospect of a hospital well past the 2026 election.

Official Budget Papers reveal the Barossa Hospital was only allocated $1 million over the next 12 months for yet another business case, despite funding for a business case being announced back in 2018 and the Government previously saying that business case had been complete.

Member of Parliament, Mr Tony Piccolo said the people in the Barossa will have to likely wait another two elections before a single brick is laid to build the new hospital.

“The Liberal Party’s commitment to this hospital has just been smoke and mirrors,” said Mr Piccolo.

The Marshall Liberal Government was forced into making some sort of loose commitment to a new Barossa Hospital after months of lobbying from Duty Member for Schubert Tony Piccolo.

The Liberals vague commitment to the new hospital was exposed in April of this year when Infrastructure SA, the agency established by the Marshall Liberal Government to help prioritise capital projects revealed that a full business plan for the Barossa Hospital had yet to commence despite repeated assurances from Liberal Ministers.

In a pre-budget announcement on 8 June Member for Schubert Stephan Knoll was quick to announce on social media,

“The Treasurer has allocated funds for the delivery of the final business case and land acquisition.”

A few hours later that same day Mr Knoll changed the social media post to say,

“The Treasurer has allocated $6m to finalise the hospital design, scope of services to be provided, acquisition of land as well as early works to the chosen site.”

However, no delivery timeline or dates were provided. Mr Piccolo said the Marshall Liberal Government has hidden the fact that commencing the building of a Barossa Hospital is still years away.

“Construction of a new hospital will not likely even start until after the 2026 election,” said Mr Piccolo.

“The budget further confirms that work on a full business case has yet to be started or considered by Infrastructure SA.”

The issue of the Barossa Hospital has been pursued vigorously by Mr Piccolo since October last year when he demanded the full business case be released.

“It appears that the public have been misled by the Marshall Liberal Government creating false expectations for when an operating hospital could be opened,” said Mr Piccolo.

“Should the Liberals win the 2022 State Election, they would have been in power for eight years before a solitary brick was laid for the new hospital, despite all their announcements.”

In his budget response this week, Labor Leader, Mr Peter Malinauskas said if Labor were elected to government at the state election in March 2022, he would cancel the Liberal’s basketball stadium project and invest funds in health, with $100 million for country health.

Shadow Health and Wellbeing Minister Chris Picton MP said “the people of the Barossa have again been misled that there is a commitment to a new hospital, when not one dollar has been committed to build a new hospital.

“Steven Marshall has now had four budgets to commit funding to build a new hospital in the Barossa, but at each step he has just kicked the can down the road.

“Now we have the complete farce of more funding for starting a second business case – even though there already was a previous business case completed last year”

“Why is there a second business case when a business case was just completed last year? This Groundhog Day seems more about delaying a decision and trying to pretend that they are doing something.

“This is a city-centric budget with hardly any commitments for regional health services – and cuts to staff in every single regional health network.”