In March, the Newcastle Herald reported that Cessnock’s Liberal Party councillors were pushing for the government to consider moving the proposed hospital from its planned site in Metford to the site of the former Norsk aluminium smelter off the Hunter Expressway at Kurri Kurri.

In Newcastle on Monday to open the new $14 million Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the John Hunter Hospital, Mr Hazzard did not rule out the proposal, but said he had been advised that health authorities were “very happy” with the existing site at Metford.

“I will consider anything as health minister that gets a better outcome for patients but certainly the advice I’ve had is that from the ministry and the local health district is that we have already bought a new site and they think that site’s a good site,” he said.

“But I am looking at the arguments both ways and challenging the bureaucracy, if you like, to see whether it is [viable] but I have heard that message and am happily looking at it.”

Mr Hazzard’s refusal to rule out the option has prompted an angry response from Maitland Labor MP Jenny Aitchison, who has accused the state government of “dragging their feet” over the proposal.

She said moving the site from Metford to Kurri Kurri would delay the project, after it was first announced in 2011. “Demolition work on the smelter [at Kurri] is expected to start in May 2017 [and] it’s expected to take two to three years,” she said.

“Use of this site would cause further delays. The Metford site is under remediation and actual construction is expected to commence in 2018.”