Hotel Quarantine Fees

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:12): Supplementary, Mr Speaker: I have a constituent, Premier, who I am told is the only person who has actually been recommended to have a waiver, and his application is sitting in a pile and has been since November of last year. If he's the only person who has been approved for a waiver, why can't he just be paid?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:12): If the member is happy to pass on those details, it is a question which I am more than happy to follow up. Quite frankly, I think the Minister for Health would be very happy to follow up. As I said, we know that this is a significant expense but, having said that, it is also a very significant expense to our state to bring people back, so we are not looking at providing exemptions for every single person that's coming through our hotel quarantine arrangements.

We understand that there are many people, Australian citizens in particular, who are stranded overseas, and we want to play our part. There are some who think that these people should be processed overseas or in some far-flung part of our nation. We think we need to play our role in the national repatriation. We think that's the fair, just and reasonable thing to do, but we do ask for compensation toward some of the costs that we incur. As I said previously, I'm more than happy to follow up on a specific application for a waiver that the member would have details on so long as, of course, that person is happy for those details to be passed on to me.