Question Time

COVID-19 Quarantine Facilities

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier believe the Prime Minister is pushing fear and division by supporting the construction of a dedicated quarantine facility in Victoria? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: In November last year, the Premier said in response to my calls to build a dedicated quarantine facility that it was 'pushing fear and division'.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:11): No, I do not believe that is the motivation of the Prime Minister. I think what the Prime Minister is wanting to do is to repatriate as many stranded Australian citizens back to this country as he possibly can. We have a situation at the moment where there are approximately 30,000 people—it does fluctuate quite a bit—30,000 Australian citizens who are wanting to come back to Australia.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: What did you call them?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Stranded Australian citizens.

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is called to order.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: They want to come back, but they need to do that 14 days of hotel quarantine. Now every state has been asked to play their part in this national repatriation. We have taken the strain. There are some who have suggested we shouldn't be part of this national repatriation—well, we believe that we should. These are Australian citizens and we should play our part. We have currently a cap of 530 per week and we have had it much higher than that. In fact, going back to September/October last year, we were up around 600 per week; we have negotiated that down to 530.

From time to time, sir, as you would be aware, we've had to ask to pause people coming in because we were concerned, especially with the new variant of concern in India. We said we needed to pause because we didn't want to overwhelm our dedicated facility at the Tom's Court Hotel. But we have played our part, we continue to play our part and we are currently, on the most recent figures, dealing with the repatriation of about 8 per cent of those coming back into Australia per week.

That is actually slightly above our population percentage, so we are not interested in increasing that further, and there are a range of reasons why we are not interested in increasing that further. One of them, of course, is that every time you do bring somebody back from overseas there is an added risk. There is a workforce element to it and there is a cost element to it, and so for those reasons we have settled on 530.

What the Prime Minister is offering in Victoria is quite separate. The Prime Minister with his offer to Victoria is to provide the capital to set up new and expanded capacity for that hotel quarantine situation. It is not available to states to essentially exchange, so with the Labor opposition saying we should take up the Prime Minister on this they are effectively saying, 'Well, we need to bring back a lot more than our 530 per week.' Our priorities—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I can only suggest that those opposite then listen very carefully to what is on offer from the Prime Minister. It is not about swapping facilities; it's about additional capacity. We have made the decision, as a government, seeking advice from the experts, like we have since day one, to limit our passenger numbers for those repatriation flights to 530 per week.

Now, of course, we have put in additional capacity to that 530 per week to support bringing Pacific workers to South Australia to expand the productive capacity of our state. Also, we have a submission to the federal government at the moment to bring international students back to South Australia because we know that this will have a massive positive economic benefit in South Australia. I hope this clarifies the situation for the Leader of the Opposition.