COVID-19 Travel Restrictions

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (16:05): The member for Waite has just done me a great favour in drawing my mind back to the things that are really important to our electors, and that is the fact that they rely on the house to take their part in everything that is going on and rely on us to be telling the absolute truth at all times.

With that in mind, I think the number one issue I am focused on along with my staff, my hardworking staff, back at the Florey electorate office—and I acknowledge all their work on behalf of our constituents and, more broadly, the north-eastern area—because 23 November looms large. Along with everybody else, I am not really certain exactly what is going to happen on 23 November.

My phone was running hot last night with queries from people who are arranging travel, coming back from overseas and interstate, who have been told by SA Health they can come, refused by police, they are not sure what to do with airline bookings. So we are kind of back to where we were on 21 September when the Department for Health provided MPs with a briefing on border exemptions.

I, along with other members, attended that in the Old Chamber where we were addressed by officials from the department and told, yes, it was a five-week wait in some cases to have your papers approved but, not to worry, there was going to be an app that would take two more weeks to be brought about, and then you could follow your application wherever that might be within the five, six or seven-week continuum. From what I have heard, there have been some improvements but not a lot.

While I again state, as I did that day, I am sure everybody is doing their best, I did see on one of my Facebook feeds this morning the department advertising for immediate starts for people to get involved with the COVID response. So that means, I imagine, those people need to be trained, and that is not leaving a lot of timing when you consider today is 18 November.

Getting back to the briefing on the 21^st, we were basically all told everything was okay when in actual fact it clearly was not, and that seems to be the tenor of things these days. People stand up, tell us everything is alright, and then anybody who says, 'But please, sir, I don't think that's the case,' is then labelled as not being a team player or being disloyal or whatever other derogatory adjective could be ascribed to them.

So on that particular day, I heard several people in the room raise concerns, basically to be told the same thing, that everything is okay and not to worry. So I then made a contribution something along the lines of, 'We are not talking about pumpkins; we are actually talking about people.' These people have lives and they have responsibilities. They do not have endless amounts of money or places to stay, nor do they have time in a lot of cases to even get on an app and sit on an app or get on a phone when no-one is answering the phone to be told not to lecture the Department for Health officials who were in the room.

At the time there were audible gasps and it was actually very comforting for me to see elder abuse identified in the room by my younger colleagues, but it was not in fact a bullying exercise. It was just plain rudeness. That is why I was staggered to read earlier this week that the head of the Department for Health, Chris McGowan, actually fronted a committee this week and admitted that they had got that wrong. They had got border exemptions wrong.

I am not sure how that is supposed to make us all feel about 23 November looming large. I am not sure how bespoke arrangements for however many thousands of people are going to work. I am not sure if hospitality venues know what they are doing or are going to do in the face of a COVID outbreak. I am not sure what the AMA or GPs are going to do. I am just asking on behalf of my constituents and people in the community to perhaps ask for another briefing by the Department for Health for members of the parliament where we might again ask some serious questions about what might be going on.

I am not sure if I have support in that, but I think it would be something I would call on the department to do or whoever called the last one to get around to doing that very, very quickly. I am not comfortable facing my community saying, 'Don't worry. Everything is going to be okay,' when in actual fact I am not certain that is the case.