Question Time

Coronavirus Restrictions

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier advise what criteria will need to be met for the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in South Australia?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:20): As the parliament would be aware, directions are put in place by the State Coordinator (that is, the police commissioner) in South Australia. He will be liaising with not only representatives of SA Health but also a broader group to understand the social, the economic, as well as the health implications of the restrictions that he has in place.

It is fair to say that the restrictions and the directions that he has put in place so far have served South Australia well. We have a very good performance as a state at the moment. We particularly commend his decision to put very strong border protection in place in South Australia back towards the end of March. I think this was a decisive action taken by the State Coordinator. Now, of course, with South Australia heading closer and closer to eliminating the coronavirus in South Australia, people are naturally asking, 'When are the restrictions going to be lifted?'

The answer to that is that we must stay the course. We must do everything we can to protect lives in South Australia. The national cabinet met the week before last and talked about the road back: how we effectively lift those restrictions that have been put in place, especially those that have been put in place above the base level that the national cabinet agreed to.

Already South Australia enjoys the lowest level of restrictions anywhere in the country, and I am very grateful to the people of South Australia for their compliance with not only the directions but also the strong advice that has been provided to the people of South Australia from the government, from the Chief Public Health Officer and, of course, from the State Coordinator.

We will continue to listen to that expert advice. We will continue, of course, to participate in the national cabinet. We will be meeting again this Friday, and we will be presented with further detail regarding progress towards the elimination—or at least the suppression—of the COVID-19 disease in Australia.

The Prime Minister, post last week's national cabinet meeting, and the week before, said that there were three critical issues that we need to have in place in Australia before further restrictions could be lifted: testing, tracing and rapid response. In terms of testing, we have a very high level of testing in South Australia. In fact, we lead the country in terms of the number of tests per head of population, and we are already well into our 14-day testing blitz, which will conclude later this week.

Tracing is, of course, critically important, and this work has kept South Australia ahead of the game. This is an area led by the Communicable Diseases Control Branch, headed up by Dr Louise Flood and her very dedicated team, which started off as a small team, expanded to 140, then 290 with another 150 flex capacity and capability ready to be engaged when they are needed. Of course, now the COVIDSafe app is the one that we are asking people to download so that we can, if you like, automate or speed up that contact tracing.

The third area, the rapid response capability, I hope we never have to use. They have had to use part of that capacity down in north-west Tasmania in recent times, but it is a capacity for the country to jump on top of an outbreak when it occurs.

As these things are put into place, the national cabinet will make further announcements regarding the lifting of these restrictions. In South Australia, we will continue as we started by always responding to the expert health advice that we have received.

The SPEAKER: Please be aware we have an accredited still photographer in the gallery today. Leader.