Coronavirus Restrictions

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (14:19): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on the further easing of COVID-19 restrictions?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:19): I thank the member for Finniss for his question and his interest in the coronavirus pandemic and the way that we have responded here in South Australia and, more broadly, across Australia. As members would be aware, we went to stage 3 on Monday of this week. We went to stage 3 because we were ready to go to stage 3 because we had done an outstanding job as a state in tackling the coronavirus head-on, dealing with it, educating ourselves about the risk, mitigating against those risks, and now we are in a position where we have been able to move back to just one person per two square metres, which I know has stood up so many businesses right across this state.

There are, of course, legitimate questions about when further restrictions may be eased and that is something that the Transition Committee in South Australia always looks at. They look at three separate issues: they look at the health issues, they look at the social issues and they look at the economic issues. They have been charged with the responsibility of providing advice to us.

One of the issues that they are very interested in at the moment is the issue of borders. We made a decision yesterday, of course, that we would not be sticking to the 20 July date. We made a decision with regard to that because we had concerns, especially regarding the number of locally acquired infections in Victoria. Again, today, unfortunately there were a high number of locally acquired transmissions in Victoria—very different from the rest of the country.

Yes, there were 14 cases today in New South Wales—all overseas acquired. They are Australians returning to Australia via the airport in Sydney, put into supervised quarantine at a hotel exactly and precisely as we do here in Adelaide. There were 14 cases identified, but that is a very different situation from the locally-acquired transmissions that are occurring in Victoria at the moment, so the borders stay in place for the time being.

What I will say, though, is that we want to help our friends in Victoria during this particularly difficult time. I make it very clear: if Victoria does well, Australia does well. If Australia does well, we do well here in South Australia. We have already reached out to the people in Victoria and we have already provided help in terms of processing some of the PCR tests that they have done in Victoria. SA Pathology has been doing what they can from that perspective.

I have already reported to this house, but I am happy to emphasise again that Dr Louise Flood, the head of the Communicable Diseases Control Branch right here in South Australia, is currently with some of her senior epidemiologists in Melbourne, working with their team to try to get on top of the current outbreaks that are in that state. More than that, though, our contact tracing team here in South Australia is working remotely from Victoria to do that work. I know that New South Wales is also helping and I know that Queensland is also helping.

This morning, there was a great moment of pride for our state when so many of our paramedics and nurses got on a plane and travelled to Melbourne to be on the front line. These are absolute heroes: 30 South Australians travelling over to Victoria at their time of need, lending that help, that assistance and that expertise that we have in abundance here in South Australia. We want to help Victoria. If they do well, we do well, Australia does well and we can stand up our economy and get people back to work.