COVID-19 Restrictions

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (14:42): My questions are to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding health.

1. When will people who have been to the Sydney LGA and Melbourne LGA with lower vaccination rates know if they can or cannot enter South Australia next Tuesday?

2 Why does the information on restrictions published yesterday say a 'separate guidance document is available' for a wide variety of industries when no such documents are publicly available yet?

3 If the documents are available, why aren't they released immediately?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:43): The honourable member raises two quite different matters and I will address each in turn. In relation to the first matter, the road map that the Premier released recently makes it clear that quarantine will apply to local government areas with community transmission and less than 80 per cent of the population fully vaccinated. That is in relation to the 23 November easing of borders.

Certainly, a concern has been raised in relation to, in particular, the Melbourne CBD local government area and also the Sydney local government area. I can assure the house and the people of South Australia that the Chief Public Health Officer is well aware of issues in relation to those LGAs and she is in the process of having discussions with both her Victorian and her New South Wales colleagues.

Certainly, I don't speak for her, and I certainly don't speak for those two health authorities, but if it might assist the house I might read from a letter that I received from the Lord Mayor of Melbourne a few days ago. Let me read you an excerpt from the letter, because it explains the issues involved and might be of assistance. The mayor, Sally Capp, writes:

Our vaccination rate is significantly higher than the rate published by the Commonwealth (69.9% on 7 November 2021). Our more accurate data indicates that more than 80 per cent of City of Melbourne residents are fully vaccinated.

The denominator on which the Commonwealth is currently calculating LGA vaccination rates is based on the 2019 Census data measured before the mass departure of international students, who pre-pandemic, made up one third of the City of Melbourne's population.

It is difficult to gauge how many of them remain in Melbourne, but some estimates are less than half.

We have raised the inaccuracy of the data as it relates to the City of Melbourne on numerous occasions with the Commonwealth since August. They have acknowledged the challenge but have not been able to identify an appropriate solution.

In the context of those comments, I would assure the honourable member that the Chief Public Health Officer of South Australia is in discussion with her interstate colleagues and on the face of it those LGAs won't be subject to a bar because of the level of vaccination.