Coronavirus Restrictions

Ms LUETHEN (King) (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government. Can the minister update the house on the Marshall Liberal government's Roadmap for Easing COVID-19 Restrictions on driving instruction lessons?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (15:03): I thank the member for King for her question. I know that this has perhaps been for young people one of the hardest issues to grapple with when it comes to COVID-19 restrictions, and that is the ability to get one's L-plates, but the State Coordinator did make a direction under the Emergency Management Act 2004 to suspend all driver training and assessment effective from Friday 10 April.

Essentially, that decision was undertaken in order to reduce the number of people who needed to attend a Service SA centre. There are essential things that need to happen. We needed those essential things to continue, so we had to find a whole series of transactions that we could stop doing in order to make sure that we continue to provide that face-to-face service for those who needed it.

It was very much advice taken in consultation with the Chief Public Health Officer. It also extended to motor driving instructors and authorised examiners. In fact, I had a lot of correspondence from people within the industry saying themselves that they thought driver training should be suspended because their ability to socially distance within that environment is difficult. Those concerns shared by many in the community were heeded as part of this.

Service SA has now been working with health officials in conjunction with the government's Roadmap to Recovery to help resume learner theory testing, whilst making sure that appropriate social distancing restrictions are still in place. Customers who had a test booking cancelled—and there were some 800-odd people who had them cancelled as a result of these COVID-19 measures—will now be contacted by the department to arrange a new booking.

In fact, I think a lot of those discussions have already been had, and my understanding is that we will take only a couple of weeks to deal with that backlog. We have opened up Service SA centres to operate on extended hours and done everything we can to help provide the opportunity for young people to get their Ls. I would also say for the member for Hammond, who I know takes a very keen interest in this, that his son Angus will also now be able to take his Ls, and his representations can be dealt with.

For learner permit applicants, including those in regional areas, I would ask them to contact 131 084 to make a booking if they haven't had contact from the department already. We are expecting a higher volume of calls. Obviously, when you stop something you create a backlog, and there will be a situation now over the next week or two where we work to deal with that backlog so we can get back to a situation where young people can get there Ls and obviously then work for their training to be conducted with their family, for those driver training hours to be done with their family.

Again, it's just another way that we have worked through listening to the health advice and our department finding ways to more innovatively deliver services so that we can make sure that we return to as much as normal whilst also keeping in mind the fact that we are dealing with a global pandemic and that we need to make sure that we can do things safely. This is just another example of how we have been able to bring ourselves that one step closer for things to be back to normal here in South Australia.