COVID-19

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier believe the Australian Medical Association undermines the public health experts we have here in South Australia by calling for alternatives to hotel quarantine for returning Australians? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Schubert!

Mr MALINAUSKAS: In response to my suggestion for purpose-built quarantine in November last year, the Premier said, and I quote, 'It undermines the public health experts we have here in South Australia.' Then, this morning on ABC radio, Dr Michelle Atchison from the Australian Medical Association, the South Australian president, said, and I quote, 'It has come time now to start thinking of alternatives or add-ons to hotel quarantine.'

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for Education is called to order and the member for Chaffey is called to order. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:21): We have just had the comments from the cherrypicker. It is always good—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: He forgot to leave out the awkward bit.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The cherrypicker-in-chief is at it again. The reality is we do need to look at alternatives to the hotel quarantine arrangements as we deal with the rolling situation with regard to this disease and that is precisely what we are doing. We already have no quarantine arrangements for those coming from New Zealand, for example.

There may be a time when we look at other countries going into that green zone. There may be a time when we are vaccinated and when other countries are vaccinated that there may be changed arrangements. There may be a situation where people can complete part of their quarantine at home when the risk is sufficiently understood, monitored and mitigated against, but that doesn't mean we throw out the current arrangements immediately.

What I think the AMA president is suggesting, and I haven't had a chance to speak with her—I do congratulate her on her elevation to this role and I do also acknowledge and thank Dr Chris Moy, who served in that role previously through a very, very difficult period. The AMA know that what we need to be doing is constantly looking at the evidence and the science, listening to the experts and responding accordingly. One thing I do know is there are a lot of experts—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader will cease interjecting.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —when it comes to the coronavirus and many of them are sitting opposite. We've got our own panel. We are not relying solely on those opposite, but the reality is we do need to constantly make ourselves aware of the changing face of this disease, the variants of interest, the variants of concern and the way the vaccination program is rolling out.

I must say the vaccination program here in South Australia is doing extraordinarily well and is increasing that run rate virtually every single day. I am very grateful to the people of South Australia for the way they are turning up to those mass vaccination clinics, to their GPs and to the country clinics to get themselves vaccinated.

There will come a time when not every person travelling across international borders needs to go into a 14-day quarantine arrangement. There will be other methodologies. We've got to make sure that we are constantly looking at this. The national cabinet has not considered in detail any such consideration, but I am quite sure the AHPPC would be starting to look at some of these issues because it is very expensive to have people in hotel quarantine situations and it may not be necessary going forward as we become vaccinated.

One of the things I have been very excited about is seeing the outcomes of vaccination in other countries, where we have seen a significantly lowered level of transmission of the disease but, most importantly, lower level symptoms and lower level severity, if you like, of the acuity of this disease, especially in older people.

We are seeing that death rate significantly reduce, that hospitalisation rate plummet in countries that have successfully rolled out that vaccination program. That is our goal in Australia. That is one of the key areas of focus for the national cabinet. It is also a key area of focus of my government and the team at SA Health, and it was great to be down at Wayville today. Yesterday was a record, with 1,232 doses administered. Michelle, who is looking after the operations down there today, tells me that we are going to provide 1,500 vaccination doses today. So every day it's increasing, and that's very important to keep our state safe.