Coronavirus

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): My question is to the Premier. What actions or systems does the Premier have in place to ensure the expert advice he is relying upon is right and other expert advice is wrong?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:23): Well, I have no reason to believe that the people who have been selected to be on the AHPPC and to be on the Communicable Diseases Network Australia aren't giving us accurate information. As I said, we have been relying on the advice of our Chief Public Health Officer, Associate Professor Dr Nicola Spurrier, since the start of this, and we have been very happy, very satisfied, with the level of advice that she has provided, and that is the advice that has really put us in the position that we are in today where we have an excellent testing regime. We've got high level confidence that we don't have significant community transmission.

I note that yesterday was the first time that Dr Spurrier had updated the daily briefing to suggest that she is now suspecting that one case in South Australia is of community transmission. What we mean by that is that, at this point, she is not in a position to be able to track back and work out where the infection actually came from. This is a significant development, but it is not unexpected. This is what is happening in every other jurisdiction in the world.

So, we have done very well, if you like, to keep that event at bay, and we will continue to take every possible opportunity we can, as I said, to reduce that peak and push it out as far as we can.