The Advertiser polls aren't exactly scrutineered, mattblack, but you have to give them some credibility at least as indicators.mattblack wrote:
I would garantee that liberal staffers would have been on top of that poll all day to turn those figures. I would give those polls no cred at all.
Bear in mind that the present RAH is freehold and is ten years into a refurbishment program.Okay, I cant help myself, Im going to have to ask how you can spend $700m and get the same infrastructure as $10 Billion ................ This should be entertaining.
The total cost including interest paid under the PPP of the new hospital in current dollars over 34 years is about $10 billion. This figure includes paying 34 years' worth of Spotless running the hospital (a cost which we would pay approximately anyway) + profit to Spotless + 15% return to Macquarie's capital investors + profit to Macquarie.
The last three figures are not offsets and we would not be paying them if we spent $700 million finishing the renovation of the old RAH. If the government were prepared to have the cost of the new RAH on its balance sheet instead of off it, that is if it simply borrowed money and built the project through DTEI, it would cost us about 6% to borrow the money instead of 15% + to do it off the balance sheet through Macquarie. I don't find that particularly entertaining.
It should be noted that while investment funds can be raised (ie Macquarie's role) for a greenfield hospital development, it's very hard to raise private funds for a refurbishment due to the risk of unknown costs. However, almost all the refurbishment part of the RAH project has been done at public cost (during the last 7 years of the Rann government. All that's left to do is $700 million of new patient accommodation which would be built on a greenfield site created within the existing hospital by demolishing existing buildings.
The objections of the 'Finish the RAH Refurb' or 'Save The RAH' lobby headed by Dr Jim Katsaros are at least threefold: 1. The fact that the hospital is over 50% renewed. 2. The very high cost of the 'New RAH' which the next few generations will pay. 2. 'It's in the wrong place' as Katsaros says. Separation by 1.5 kilometres and a half hour travel time from the Medical School, the IMVS, Hanson Centre and Dental School will create unnecessary costs which have not been thought through.
