Coronavirus

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:16): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding public health. Can the minister inform the chamber whether there has been a specific advertising campaign considered for the current COVID-19 crisis, and whether any new advertising creative product for this crisis has been produced in the past few weeks?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:17): Yes, I certainly can. This government appreciates the importance of getting timely information out to the community, and that is why on the Sunday before last there was an eight-page wraparound explaining to people how they could be part of the response to COVID-19 in terms of personal hygiene, social distancing and the like as well as the way people should go about seeking a COVID-19 test if they needed one.

Also, I think it was only last Sunday that the Stop the Spread campaign started in South Australia. That campaign is building on a message that SA Health has been putting out to the community for, I think, a year or two now but which has been refocused to relate to coronavirus. A lot of the personal hygiene issues that relate to influenza also relate to COVID-19.

Public messaging is also being done by the commonwealth, which we are seeking to complement, and public health authorities have been working with multicultural communities. In particular here I would like to acknowledge the work done by the Hon. Jing Lee to help connect the Chinese community, in particular, but a whole range of multicultural communities to the public health message. Through her support some particularly useful information is going to be made available in a whole range of languages.

Public messaging has also been strongly supported by the use of Facebook campaigns. A lot of the community updates are provided on live streamed Facebook presentations, and SA Health is going out of its way to seek to have a Deaf Can:Do translator to put the message to the widest possible community in South Australia.

We certainly have a range of media being used. I think the Stop the Spread campaign is everything from radio to bus shelters, because it is very important to make sure that we reach people who might not otherwise proactively engage in seeking information. We will continue to use social media advertising as well in a lot of unorthodox, to be frank, locations. It wasn't an SA Health message, but even one of my music streaming sites had a COVID-19 message. In a global pandemic we need to try to use a global reach to get the message out. SA Health will continue to do that.