Coronavirus, Travel

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:28): Supplementary: has an audit been undertaken of the exemption committee's decisions to ensure that no other errors have been made?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:28): My response to that will be in two parts: first, these are human processes and, as I said, there will be administrative errors, there will be errors of judgement. We need to strive to minimise those errors. At the press conference yesterday afternoon, Professor Spurrier indicated that she would be looking at—

The Hon. T.A. Franks interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Sorry, if I can finish my answer—Professor Spurrier indicated that she would be looking at exemptions previously granted. She also indicated that it was her intention to modify the process for exemptions.

As the pandemic has progressed, SA Health, as I said, committed to continuous improvement, changed the exemption process. My understanding is that there's been an exemptions committee for some time, but in the not too distant past a review process was established whereby if they got a decision from the exemptions committee that they thought should be reviewed, they could have it reviewed by, I think, two other members.

One of those members was Professor Spurrier. One of her responses to this error of judgement coming to light is that she has decided to go back onto the exemptions committee so she can have better oversight of the decisions being made. Also, that would presumably mean that another officer would join what I understand is two officers who undertake reviews.