COVID-19 Quarantine

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:05): My question is to perhaps the Premier or the minister representing the Minister for Health. Can someone confirm why returning South Australians, approved for home quarantine by EntryCheck SA, I am told as recently as 1 December appear to have been placed in medi-hotels and are being held there as assessment checks that should have been possible within a few hours appear to be taking days? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: I am told by recently arrived double-vaccinated travellers that they are in this very position. While PCR tests can take as little as 24 hours on the outside world and identifying country of origin and suitability of premises for home quarantine were all well in place before their arrival after 23 November when borders were opened, these travellers were detained and today, while information has changed several times, they now seem likely to be released from hotel quarantine before 3.30 in time for the next plane load of arrivals to check in.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:06): It's not uncommon for us to put people into the most secure arrangements pending verification of their home quarantine arrangements. We were the first to pioneer this in the country and, in fact, the rest of the country is mainly using the hotel quarantine arrangements. It was South Australia that pioneered the home quarantine arrangements.

Some people in the early stages thought, 'I can do it at my home,' but they didn't take into account that they might be, for example, in a high-rise building where they were using common facilities like lifts to go off and have their required PCR tests, which made them ineligible. Some people were telling us they could isolate but then couldn't provide us with further detail with regard to whether there was anybody else on that site or likely to come.

We do want to make sure, especially for those coming from overseas and especially now that we are dealing with this new Omicron variant at the moment. I apologise if there has been any inconvenience to anybody who has come in, but our primary responsibility is to keep our state safe. We are concerned with the international border. That's why we moved from seven days' quarantine to 14 days' quarantine for anybody coming back from overseas on the weekend, when we learned more about the Omicron variant.

I am hopeful that that will be able to be reduced down fairly quickly. In fact, we said that when we got to 90 per cent we were hopeful that we could remove that quarantine time for all international arrivals who are fully vaccinated. We need to see where Omicron goes between now and then, but I am hopeful that we can move back down to seven days and then ultimately to zero as soon as possible.

Since the advent of the coronavirus, we have said that we don't want to keep any restriction in place one day longer than we need to, but we have needed to. We have needed to put very strong arrangements in place for those people who have come from overseas and those who have come from interstate. Now, of course, our major restriction is on those people who are unvaccinated. I think that sends a very strong message to those people who remain unvaccinated, who remain reluctant or hesitant about having the vaccination.

I apologise if there has been any inconvenience to these people who have arrived but, out of an abundance of caution, we need to verify that the place—whilst it might be their home—is actually a suitable place to make sure that they are isolated not only from other family members coming but also from other tenants potentially in a building or a compound who they could come into contact with when they are going off for their required PCR test during that time of isolation.