Hairdressing Salons

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:10): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about hairdressing salons.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Let me preface my explanation by giving credit where credit is due by commending the state and federal governments on their rapid responses to the pandemic, which I'm sure has been welcomed by the community. The SA Hair and Beauty Industry Association has requested the state and federal governments to immediately close down hairdressing salons across the country to further reduce the risk of exposure and spread of coronavirus. This is because its own member salons are finding it difficult to comply with social distancing requirements, which business and patrons are finding confusing and contradictory.

The association has also reported several incidents of clients flouting self-isolation after returning from overseas, including one client who visited a hairdresser and later tested positive to COVID-19, while other salons are reporting staff being abused and accused of flouting social distancing requirements by passers-by.

My question to the minister is: why hasn't the state government ordered the closure of all hairdressing salons in South Australia; how does the government expect salons to exercise 1.5 metre distancing between salon chairs when hairdressers are required to be centimetres from a client to be able to cut their hair; and do you think the decision by the federal government to allow hairdressers to remain open, after first ordering their closure before doing a complete backflip, yet ordering beauty salons and nail salons to shut down, sends confusing messages to the community?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:12): I thank the honourable member for his question. I think it is a point well made that there is a lot of confusion out there. One of the problems was the nimbleness of the government response, both federal and state. There was a period there—I will have to go back and look at the chronology—where a full week might not have even passed before one set of restrictions was replaced by another set of restrictions. People, quite understandably, were not really sure what they were supposed to be complying with. It is a challenging environment not only for proprietors but also for customers.

With all due respect, I don't think the national cabinet could be accused of a backflip. The advice, as I understand it, from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) was, I think, to limit hairdressing sessions to half an hour and it was the national cabinet's decision to extend that to two hours, I seem to recall. I wouldn't describe it as a backflip, but rather a revision of the national cabinet decision.

I appreciate that there is plenty of community debate about some of the decisions that national cabinet has made. For example, why can a playground operate inside a school and not outside a school? No matter whether it's a decision made under normal processes of government or by, shall we say, the expedited processes of the national cabinet, there will always be debatable matters.

I know it's challenging for a society that is used to orderly consideration of proposals and the right to challenge and amend them—that's why we're here. I know it's challenging culturally in terms of the public debate that there is actually no debate. The State Coordinator makes these decisions and they are under the emergency management legislation put in place by this parliament. The expedited processes of a major emergency mean that the normal processes of debate and consideration are not available.

So not only is there confusion about what is in place—and we do our best to try to provide information to people to make clear what the expectations are—but I think there's also frustration because people don't have the normal avenues to debate and shape legislation. I hope that South Australians are feeling more at ease now that we are seeing tangible benefit from the restrictions that have been put in place and, to be frank, by their compliance with them. These measures could not have achieved the public health outcome that they have if they relied on police enforcement to make them work.

We need well over 90 per cent compliance with these measures for them to have a public health impact. In relation to the business enforcement activity and in relation to the personal enforcement activity, compliance levels have been in the high nineties. That isn't achieved by a police enforcement mechanism, it's achieved by a community working together, pulling together in the face of a pandemic to deliver a shared outcome.

I know that a lot of young Australians—and I know that we discussed this in the chamber last time we met—would feel relatively unthreatened by coronavirus because they hear that older Australians are more vulnerable to it. But since we last met, there have been tragic cases of young people also dying from this disease and I think that in that high nineties compliance you have an awful lot of younger Australians who are saying, 'I may not be doing it for me, but I am doing it for my family, I'm doing it for my grandparents, I'm doing it for the more vulnerable members in my community.'

I would like to take that as a link to the honourable member's statement about members of the community abusing hairdressers when they continue to go about their lawful business. This is not a situation where people should see themselves as some sort of deputy sheriff running around enforcing what they think is good public health advice. The AHPPC and the national cabinet are laying down a very clear strategy to maximise public health. It is having tangible benefits. I would encourage South Australians to back those efforts by complying and avoiding the temptation for becoming enforcement officers themselves.