Gardening bill: McLaren Vale Hospital pays deputy chair’s family trust
Documents show a family trust connected to a McLaren Vale Hospital board member was paid tens of thousands of dollars.
A family trust connected to McLaren Vale Hospital deputy chair Patricia Tassie was paid more than $40,000 for gardening and administrative services during the 2026 financial year, InDaily can reveal.
Documents from the hospital’s annual general meeting, held last Thursday, show the Tassie Family Trust was paid $22,009 for gardening and maintenance services and $20,354 for administrative services. Financial reports showed in the year before, the Tassie Family Trust was paid $2,795 for gardening and maintenance services.
No other board member received any payments from the hospital during the 12-month period ending in June 30, 2026. InDaily is not suggesting the board or Tassie was involved in any wrongdoing.
Tassie is a McLaren Vale local and operates a luxury wine tour business called Wine Diva Tours with her husband, Nick Tassie.
She was among locals who raised concerned about the 2023 closure of the hospital. Her grandfather-in-law, Dr Gemmel Tassie, was one of the founders of the hospital and the first doctor to work on site.
Tassie was appointed to the board on November 27, 2024, the same day the former board stepped down following a Davis-led court challenge that determined the former board acted oppressively and that its decision to give the hospital to a nearby aged care facility was invalid.
She became deputy chair on February 20, 2025.
The AGM minutes, said the most recent financial report showed that costs were down. It said that accounting and administration services were reduced from $80,000 the year before to “half that” and maintenance costs were cut by $60,000 per year and cleaning by $12,000 per year.
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Board chair Henry Davis said the gardening, maintenance and administration services “were subject to a tender process, with the successful tender being by far the cheapest received”.
“The services involve the ongoing maintenance of the hospital property, substantial physical labour and the administration of the hospital’s affairs which has resulted in a substantial saving of $30,000 per year,” he said.
“South Australia is in the middle of an extraordinary healthcare crisis, with record ambulance ramping and enormous pressure on our public hospitals.
“Yet rather than holding the State Government accountable, InDaily appears increasingly interested in attacking the volunteers working to preserve a community hospital.
“If InDaily wants to run a special investigation, why not investigate the Labor Party’s involvement in advocating for the closure of a community hospital in 2023?”
The document also reveals the hospital’s financial position is improving. The loss for the year improved from nearly $1 million the year prior to $23,475 at June 30.
That same report shows the hospital generated $379,961 in revenue in the year to June 30, 2026. This included $234,321 in rent and $133,154 in donations.
The latest report is yet to be audited, with a letter to the hospital board penned by Not For Profit Accounting Specialists CEO David Woodcock and seen by InDaily explaining that auditor Ian Mostert had “taken ill” and could not complete the audit in time.
Mostert’s previous audits of the company revealed the state government was demanding repayment of close to $1 million of taxpayer funds.
Hospital chair Henry Davis and his board, that includes George Mamalis who leads right-wing political organisation Turning Point Australia’s SA branch (the late Charlie Kirk’s US group), says their legal advice is to not repay the funds.
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Davis – a former City of Adelaide councillor and mayoral hopeful – says the funds were already spent on maintaining hospital operations.
The board repaid $200,000 to the state government in 2025.
Health Minister Blair Boyer previously told InDaily that he was “seeking further advice about the next steps to recoup the funds owed” and InDaily understands this includes receiving his own legal advice.
“The McLaren Vale Hospital board is attempting to restore healthcare services to a community that needs them. We have repeatedly sought to resolve the Government’s disputed claim through engagement and discussion,” Davis said today.
“Meanwhile, South Australians continue to sit in ambulances outside overcrowded hospitals.
“Blair Boyer is the Health Minister. He is accountable for the performance of the healthcare system.”
Following InDaily’s reporting, McLaren Vale and Districts War Memorial Hospital board treasurer Michael Baragwanath wrote to the Health Minister, Deputy Premier and Premier of South Australia, demanding resolution of a dispute over government funding.
“We are particularly disappointed that the government is willing to communicate through the media while refusing to engage directly with a community-owned institution,” he said in an email to Boyer.
Baragwanath is also the lead consultant for a joint project between Ross Pelligra and the Freemasons of SA and NT, to build a $450 million skyscraper Keystone Tower behind the Freemasons Hall on North Terrace.
Davis is a Freemason, as is another hospital board member, Boyd Sparrow.
In the 2025 financial report, the hospital’s auditor found that the organisation made payments totalling $271,608 in settlement of the legal dispute with the former board.
This was partly paid out to Davis’s law firm – HLD Legal, for legal expenses.
The remaining $146,683 was paid to a firm called Barra Consulting Group Pty Ltd, a consulting firm connected to Baragwanath.
Davis previously said the settlement arrangements were “confidential, in part to protect the interests and privacy of the parties involved”.
“The auditor’s qualification identifies an evidentiary limitation; it does not constitute a finding of unlawful conduct,” Davis said.
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