Question Time

Hinton, Ms L.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (14:11): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier believe it is appropriate for senior media adviser, Lucy Hinton, to post on Instagram a meme mocking the transmission of the coronavirus from South Australia to Victoria while more than 20 people are infected and at least one person is requiring ventilation in intensive care? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Earlier today, the senior media adviser allocated to the Deputy Premier, Lucy Hinton, posted a meme featuring a well-known Australian TV character joking with a text, 'South Australia after giving Melbourne coronavirus then shutting the border between the two states,' with a character saying, 'I'm so random. I can't believe I just did that.' Above this post, Ms Hinton had written 'so good' with three crying laughter emojis.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:14): I thank the member for Lee for his question. I haven't seen that, but what I can say, of course, is that we are devastated here in South Australia with the transmission that occurred in our medi-hotel. We take very seriously the operation of our medi-hotel here, and of course we know the devastating consequences when things go wrong.

We also know that this is a highly contagious disease. The Chief Public Health Officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, has just given a press conference when she talked about the current variant of concern, originally declared a variant of interest, now declared as a variant of concern, and the transmissibility of this particular variant.

I think the whole of the country at the moment is on high alert. Our thoughts are with people in Victoria at the moment, who we know are doing it extraordinarily tough. We moved very quickly and promptly yesterday when we could see the situation was deteriorating with a higher number of infections being reported. We made changes to the restrictions that were in place and we put up social media, as well as doing a lot of media ourselves to convey the situation.

We closed our border to Greater Melbourne of 6pm last night. We also made it clear that those people who had come from Greater Melbourne from 20 May right through until 6 o'clock last night needed to get themselves tested on day one, day five and day 13, and we made a similar request for those people who were in Bendigo.

What I can tell the house at the moment is that there is a meeting this afternoon with the police commissioner, acting as the State Coordinator during this major emergency declaration, and the Chief Public Health Officer regarding whether there needs to be any further changes to those restrictions in light of the Victorian government's announcement this morning that they would put their state into a seven-day lockdown.

We take this matter extraordinarily seriously. We moved very promptly yesterday to protect South Australia. This is a particularly contagious variant of the coronavirus. Every single person needs to be on high alert. This is one of the reasons why we are very strongly encouraging people to get vaccinated when they are eligible and making sure that, if they develop any symptoms whatsoever, they go and get themselves tested. Thirdly is a plea to people to use the QR code check-in facility. This is a very important line of defence against this coronavirus.