House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Parliamentary Committees Parliamentary Committees COVID-19 Direction Accountability and Oversight Committee COVID-19 Direction Accountability and Oversight Committee S.E. ANDREWS House of Assembly Gibson S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (11:01): I move: That the report of the committee be noted. The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Gibson, do you wish to speak to the motion? S.E. ANDREWS House of Assembly Gibson S.E. ANDREWS: No, sir. The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Very well. Are there any other members wishing to seek the call? Mr BASHAM House of Assembly Finniss Mr BASHAM: I draw your attention to the state of the house. A quorum having been formed: Mrs HURN House of Assembly Schubert Mrs HURN (Schubert) (11:03): In speaking to this committee report, I thought it would be a worthy exercise just to traverse the COVID landscape that we have lived in for over three years and how we got to this point. On 1 February 2020, we had our first COVID case in South Australia. It is pretty remarkable to think that this was more than three entire years ago. Just over a month later, our Premier in Steven Marshall announced that the state's and the nation's first drive-through COVID-19 testing facility would open here in South Australia. That actually ended up becoming the first of its kind in not only Australia but the southern hemisphere, and it was actually second in the world by only a matter of a couple of days to South Korea at the time. A $350 million stimulus package was announced to boost the economy. Home isolations, border closures and restrictions followed. This was emulated in many ways right throughout 2021. To say that it was a difficult situation for families and businesses I think would be an enormous understatement. It was a period of unprecedented disruption that we had not seen for generations, and I do not think we will see such a disruption for generations to come. It was not just unprecedented here in South Australia, of course, it was right around the nation, and right around the world, where COVID and the following restrictions caused so much pain and suffering not just for families but for so many businesses, businesses in all our communities. Families were dislocated, businesses shut their doors, loved ones lost their jobs, sports stopped, aged-care facilities closed, frontline health workers were pushed to the brink, mental health challenges surged, and people lost their lives. In fact, 1,321 South Australians lost their lives throughout COVID, but I know that more South Australians are alive today thanks to the swift and decisive action that was taken by the former Marshall Liberal government. Many jurisdictions failed to act quickly enough and this indecisiveness really only played into the hands of the virus. In South Australia, testing was the cornerstone of our successful response, surging to thousands upon thousands of tests per day, and that really was the best way that we could monitor the spread of this virus right throughout our community. We needed this mammoth testing regime because the virus just pushed our healthcare workers to the absolute brink, almost collapsing under the daily pressures and the daily strain that COVID caused them, because our emergency departments were overflowing, we had really difficult cases, and ventilators that we had to bring in. But it was also a time of great opportunity for many businesses and that is the flipside. It was in many ways a tale of two cities, where we had some businesses that really struggled but many actually thrived. Many forged ahead with new innovations that ensured that our state was kept safe and strong. There will be many reviews into decisions made throughout this period and that is only right, but ultimately with what I would refer to as choppy, unprecedented, unchartered waters, we managed to navigate the storm. Throughout 2022, we entered a very different phase of the pandemic where we were living with COVID. We exited the emergency declaration that we had in for hundreds of days and we transitioned over to the Public Health Act, a move which was very much supported by the opposition, not supported with a tick and flick approach that you might expect, very much in-principle support, but we put forward several really commonsense amendments that were guided by the business community largely who had particular concerns about some of the penalties that were in place when some of these restrictions were broken. The reason that we put forward those amendments was really around the fact that the severity of living with the virus had significantly decreased, and that is the nature of getting yourself out of the emergency declaration. Ultimately, of course, they were not accepted by the government but one thing that was established in this transition was the establishment of the parliamentary COVID accountability and oversight committee. Its purpose was its namesake: it was to have an oversight and accountability role with avenues to review any new health directions relating to COVID-positive South Australians, to close contact rules and, ultimately, with the power to put forward any recommendations of disallowance to both houses of the parliament. Pleasingly, I can confirm that there were no such motions put forward for disallowance to any house of the parliament. Members across the political divide from the upper and lower houses of parliament sat on this committee, myself included, and we called several witnesses. These included Professor Nicola Spurrier, who we were fortunate enough to question on multiple occasions, Professor Joshua Ross, Professor Adrian Esterman and, of course, police commissioner, Grant Stevens. It really was a fantastic opportunity to have some in depth questioning of all of those witnesses to get a much better understanding about the timing of peaks, and to get an understanding about what it ultimately would mean for the capacity within our emergency departments. It allowed us to have our finger on the pulse of what so many of the decision-makers, or so many of the people who were feeding up information to the executive arm of government, were thinking. Really, I think it was an opportunity for all of us in this place, and that is why I have taken the opportunity to speak today. I note that I am the only one speaking today, and I rushed to the chamber to do so. For all of us in this place, I think it is worth reflecting on how far we have come in dealing with COVID. It was a really difficult period in the state's history, and I am grateful that we are now at this point in the COVID pandemic. I am grateful that the parliamentary committee was established. I am grateful that I had a role to play on that committee, and I would like to say that there is still much more rebuilding to be done. Whilst we have had the oversight committee we have also had the opportunity to not just transition out of the Emergency Management Act and now the Public Health Act but also transition to a new phase, and that is the recovery of so many businesses that are still grappling with the impact of COVID-19. Motion carried.