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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-03-24 Daily Xml
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State Lockdown

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:10): My question is to the Premier. Why hasn't the government yet moved to a comprehensive lockdown as New Zealand and much of Western Europe has?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:10): As the Leader of the Opposition would be more than aware, the national cabinet has been considering a range of options put forward by the AHPPC to control the spread of the coronavirus. These have been escalating in recent days from the announcement less than two weeks ago by the Prime Minister that there would be restrictions on mass gatherings above 500. Since then, there has been progressive implementation of further restrictions. We wait to see what the advice is from the AHPPC tonight.

The reality is that all states and territories are working together. We are not bound to work together, but we are working together to implement nationally consistent approaches, although we have moved slightly further in South Australia to close our state borders. This makes logical sense because the incidence of the spread of the virus in South Australia and the fact that we haven't, to this point in time, had community transmission means that we would like to provide that further buffer from other states.

In the early days, the coronavirus was basically picked up from people who were returning from overseas. Increasingly, recently, it has been from people who are returning from interstate—people who might have been there for work, for a conference, on a holiday or for personal reasons. This coronavirus doesn't differentiate: everybody is susceptible to it. Of course, when those people return to South Australia they can infect those people who they come into close contact with.

This is why we have done two things: to follow the AHPPC advice at the national level with regard to social distancing but put in our own very strong plan and our increased restriction regarding stopping people from coming into South Australia without a commitment to undertake two weeks of self-isolation. This applies to not only people from interstate or perhaps visitors from overseas who are coming into South Australia for self-isolating for two weeks, it also applies to South Australians.

It applies to South Australians who might be going interstate. They are not stopped from going interstate, but when they return—and they are not stopped from returning to South Australia—they must submit themselves to two weeks of self-isolation. They will need to complete a declaration, provide details of where they are going to be, and subject themselves to the potential for a random audit of SAPOL. We are taking these restrictions very seriously because we know that, if we get these things right, we will unequivocally save lives in South Australia.

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