HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-08-25 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

COVID-19 Emergency Response (Expiry) (No 3) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 24 August 2021.)

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (16:07): I rise to speak again in relation to another COVID-19 expiry amendment extension piece of legislation in this house. I indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition. I indicate that we will be consistent in relation to our support for measures to keep our state safe. We will of course consider any amendments that may come up in this house or in the other place.

It is important that we have in place very important powers for the State Coordinator to manage this emergency. I say that advisedly because, essentially, we started with a very big piece of legislation covering COVID-19 in South Australia and, bit by bit, we are reduced to this very small piece of legislation that we are now seeking to extend, particularly as there is a permanent measures piece of legislation that is soon to come into effect.

Basically, as the Attorney said in her second reading explanation, this legislation will be reduced to one key element, which is about extending the powers of the State Coordinator to make directions that take effect for the entire state or for any particular class of people. We have had a fantastic response from the South Australian community, a fantastic response under the leadership and the directions that have been put in place.

All those directions have been made, have been decided upon through this pandemic from one office, and that office is the office of the State Coordinator: Grant Stevens, the police commissioner. I also acknowledge Deputy Commissioner Linda Williams, who at various stages of the pandemic has stepped into that role for Grant Stevens and has also provided excellent decision-making. Once again, I put on the record to this house the complete support of the opposition in relation to the role that Grant Stevens has played in relation to making the difficult decisions in regard to how this pandemic should be managed.

This is different from what we have seen in other states, where there have been various other decision-making bodies or processes in place. It might be different in other states, where cabinet has had some involvement and elected members have had some involvement in the decision-making. That has not happened here. The Premier does not make the decisions in relation to directions or the management of borders, quarantine arrangements or restricted business arrangements. Those decisions are all made by Grant Stevens.

I also acknowledge that he is ably advised in that role by the control agency, and that is SA Health, which is led in relation to the COVID-19 area by Professor Nicola Spurrier, who has equally provided excellent advice and leadership for South Australia in these very difficult times that have seen us unite as a community and stay safe as a community. We have endeavoured to make sure that we are supporting those decisions and those directions as well, and there have been any number of times when we have been called upon to take different decisions on border arrangements or on particular limits for businesses and the like.

Around the country, you have seen oppositions do that and seek to put in place different political considerations that should be in place for, say, border openings and the like. We have not done that. We have supported those decisions by Grant Stevens, advised by Nicola Spurrier, just as the Premier and his government have done as well.

Essentially, under the framework that is in place under the legislation, and this is legislation that was put in place I believe in 2004 under the previous government that set up this role of the State Coordinator, under this arrangement and this declaration that have been in place for a record period of time—I think the previous record was less than two weeks and we are now well into the second year of this operation—it is the State Coordinator's decision in relation to what those declarations and decisions should be. I think that there would be places in Australia where people would be nervous about the head of the police force having such significant powers and how they would be exercised.

I know when I have spoken to colleagues interstate and explained how our legislation works and that the decisions are actually being made by the State Coordinator, the police commissioner, and that the decisions are not being made by the cabinet or the Premier, they are aghast: 'Would you really want your police commissioner making these sorts of decisions?' That might be a reflection upon police forces in other states and the regard they are held by people in those states.

Well, here I think we have been very fortunate to have both a well-regarded police force that has the respect and the cooperation of the community in the way they go about their business and a police force well led by Commissioner Grant Stevens, Deputy Commissioner Linda Williams and the entire team at SAPOL, who see their role as working in partnership with the community. I can speak from my brief experience as police minister for six months of certainly being in admiration of the role that our police do, particularly the role that Grant Stevens plays as the leader of that force. We have now really seen that come to the fore over the past year and a half as he is making these difficult decisions on behalf of the state.

There are essentially some informal arrangements in place under those arrangements that have been put in place, I think acknowledging the fact that this is now such an extended period of emergency declaration in this state. Those informal arrangements are that, where there is a need to increase restrictions, those decisions are made following what is called a directions meeting. So the police and SA Health meet to discuss the situation and decide to put in place various restrictions and directions to deal with that threat.

As we understand from what the Premier has told the estimates committee, he is then told about what decisions have been made by Grant Stevens and then there will be a press conference where the Premier will tell the public what decisions the State Coordinator has made on behalf of the state following that directions meeting.

Equally, in the reverse, as there are decisions to remove restrictions, there is a meeting that is held, called the Transition Committee, and at that meeting are essentially senior public servants from across the government. I believe they are the Department for Health CE, the Treasury CE, the industry CE, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet CE and, of course, the Chief Public Health Officer and the police commissioner as the State Coordinator.

They decide what restrictions can be reasonably removed at those Transition Committee meetings. That decision, though, legally and ultimately, is a decision for Grant Stevens as the police commissioner and the State Coordinator to make. Those decisions are then communicated to the Premier and then the Premier is able to make an announcement, if he wishes, as to what decisions have been made by Grant Stevens as the State Coordinator. That is communicated to the public, or sometimes Grant Stevens will communicate for himself what decisions he has made under the legislation.

Through both of those meetings and committees, from what we understand from what we have been told in various forums such as estimates committees, there are not any political or elected representatives or cabinet members or the Premier at either of those meetings. Those officials meet and decide, and it is Grant Stevens who makes those decisions, then that is communicated to the public, often via the Premier after he has been told what decisions have been made. So that is probably different from what happens in other states.

Certainly, I recall the Premier telling the estimates committee that he had not been to any of the Transition Committee meetings, which is probably different from what some people might expect if they had been following the television coverage and the like when those decisions are announced thinking that he had been there, whereas we understand from what he said that he is not there, or perhaps he has been on one occasion over the past 18 months, but then those decisions that have been made are communicated to him and he will communicate them to the public.

I think, though, that very clearly those decisions that have been made by Grant Stevens have put us in a very good position. I know that we have previously discussed in the chamber the fact that over the last year there have been various discussions and proposals mooted for a change in these relationships, a change in how this process should be navigated. At every turn, it really has not resulted in any particular change. We have seen a continuation of those arrangements now being brought to the house and proposed by the Attorney-General that this should extend now beyond the scope of the next election until April next year for the biggest extension of time that we would have seen for these arrangements since they have been put in place.

As people would recall, when we had our lockdown following the Peppers hotel outbreak in November last year, there was discussion from the State Coordinator at the time in relation to whether this should continue.

In fact, in January this year, the Premier was quoted as saying that the government had been working on longer term reforms to the emergency management since November last year, so that would have been about the same time as that Peppers Hotel outbreak that they had been working on them. We are now nearing the end of August and there has been no decision on any different arrangements and in fact the government is now extending these current arrangements beyond April this year. I believe that on 4 January this year, InDaily reported:

As the state enters its tenth month under an emergency declaration—and Marshall enters his final full calendar year before kicking off his re-election campaign—the Premier said authorities were considering how to return the state's emergency decision-making to cabinet government.

'We are looking at that at the moment,' he said.

'We were looking at it very carefully in November—before the Parafield cluster.'

This is something that also has been discussed by the State Coordinator, Commissioner Grant Stevens himself, when he spoke to journalists. I believe he was asked when he may step aside from the role of State Coordinator, and he said:

We are providing advice to the government in relation to what those options might be that see the requirement for a major emergency declaration to be revoked. At this point in time this is the only mechanism we have that gives us the ability to require people to participate in QR code activity, to have marshals on board, to have one person per two square metres, all of those things are contingent upon some ability to require people to do that, that's the major emergency declaration. The government is having a look at how we can replace that with another mechanism that provides the same level of accountability to the community and until that's developed, I'll continue to operate as the State coordinator...

So, clearly, there were discussions underway some time ago about some additional mechanism or other proposal that will be put in place where this would not continue and that role would not need to continue but, importantly, all those key requirements would be able to continue, but that has obviously come to nothing. The State Coordinator also said:

…the major declaration is the only mechanism under the emergency management act that allows this to occur, the replacement for this would be a piece, a specific piece of legislation that provides a baseline level of restrictions for community activities and gives us the ability to introduce restrictions for people coming in to South Australia, so we can manage risk...

When he was asked whether he would continue as State Coordinator under such legislation, the State Coordinator responded, 'My role as the State Coordinator would cease.'

This has also come up when we have had previous discussions as to whether to extend these powers in relation to the parliament over really the past year and I believe at every turn the Attorney has said there are still things being worked on, that there are models being discussed, different proposals being looked at and that they have not landed on one but are still working on it. I think now we can pretty definitively say that that is not happening because what the government is doing now is putting in place these provisions permanently until after the next election through this bill, which is a very significant extension compared with the previous extensions we have had in place.

However, I think there is an understanding from the government that perhaps Grant Stevens has really done an excellent job, and certainly it is our belief as the opposition that he has done a great job. Presumably, that is why they have abandoned any other proposal or, as was discussed in InDaily, returning to cabinet government because the decision-making has put us in such a good position and those two officials who have really led the state's COVID response, Grant Stevens and Nicola Spurrier, have the full confidence of the South Australian public, which has been very united in making sure we can get through this COVID-19 pandemic so well.

I think it is worth looking at what the Attorney is proposing in terms of the timing of this legislation, because we are being presented with a very significant extension of this legislation that would take us to April next year, which is a longer extension than I understand we have had at any other previous point.

I had some work done looking at the previous legislation that we have had in place and how long it was between each of those pieces of legislation and the next time the parliament was able to consider that and consider extensions or alterations to that legislation.

The first legislation that was effectively put in place, I believe retrospectively to 30 March 2020 and the gap to the next time that parliament enacted legislation to extend that, was 185 days, so that was a significant period of time. The next one from September 2020 to 6 February was 129 days. There was then an extension from 6 February to 31 May of 114 days. Then there was an extension from 31 May to 17 September, which is 109 days. That 109 days is the current extension of time which we have in place at the moment and which was approved by parliament back in May this year.

What we now have is a proposal to extend it from 17 September to 30 April. That would be an extension of time of 225 days. If you look at all those extensions of time—185, 129, 114, 109—each time they are actually reducing, whereas now the Attorney is proposing to increase the extension of these powers to a very significant 225 days.

I think that when we get to the committee stage, or at least in the Attorney's summing up, it is important to get that explanation as to why the government is proposing such a significant extension of time in this place compared with the shorter extensions of time where we have had a cooperative arrangement in making sure that none of this has expired previously, and where we have had a cooperative arrangement to make sure that our officials—particularly Grant Stevens who is making a lot of those key decisions—have the power they need, whereas we are now looking to double the last period of time that is in place.

Really, by the time we get to 30 April next year, which is the date the Attorney is proposing in her legislation, I believe it will be 25 months that these extended powers for the State Coordinator would be in place, which is obviously very significant. I believe that those powers would be in place for some 760 days.

I think it is worth spending some time looking at what is the current COVID situation. Clearly, we are in a worrying situation when you look across the border at what is happening in terms of New South Wales, if you look at what is happening in Victoria, if you look at what is happening in the ACT, and even now what is happening in New Zealand as well.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 is much more transmissible than the original strain of the virus that came from China last year. It is also more transmissible than the other variants of the virus we have had, and it is now causing a very significant issue in Sydney. We are now seeing a record number of cases that we have had ever in this country's history on a daily basis, and we now have a very significant number of people in hospital not only in New South Wales but also now sadly in Victoria. The latest stats I saw today were worrying in terms of how many people were in ICU and ventilated in that state as well.

Essentially, the spread from New South Wales has gone to Victoria, to the ACT and to New Zealand. We know that there also have been spreads previously here in South Australia, to WA and to Queensland, which thankfully have been able to be got on top of, but when you are dealing with the Delta strain very clearly that is a very difficult thing to do.

I think we can all be thankful for the work of health officials and also the State Coordinator, Grant Stevens, and the decision made to put the state into that seven-day lockdown and take the early action that protected South Australia in relation to the Modbury cluster, where that strain came from a traveller who had come from New South Wales.

Very clearly, if you look at what has now happened in some of these other states and New Zealand that also went into snap lockdowns, they are struggling to get on top of it, and that is very worrying. I think there is a temptation to think that Melbourne and Sydney are different. They have more apartments and more density of living compared with Adelaide. I think you just have to look at Canberra and Auckland, which are cities that are much more similar in density and population size to Adelaide than Sydney or Melbourne are, and they are now in a fully-fledged fight to get on top of the outbreaks there.

We need to do everything we possibly can to keep Delta out of South Australia, and we absolutely support the decisions Grant Stevens has made on the border restrictions that are in place in relation to a whole range of states, particularly New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT. I believe that restrictions have now been lifted in relation to Queensland and that today WA have removed their restrictions from South Australia, which is welcome news as well.

Clearly, this is a time when people need to be very careful about any interstate travel they embark upon because there could be a change to the border arrangements at any time. That is something we support to make sure that we do not see an outbreak here that could be devastating for the South Australian community.

We talked about the fact that there are all these decisions that are made by Grant Stevens under this emergency management framework. I think it is also worth looking at some of the things that are very important for the COVID-19 pandemic that are essentially the responsibility of the executive government and the cabinet in the normal way. These are not things that involve particular directions being put in place, but some involve funding or decisions made in regard to resource allocation and the like.

One of those issues is in relation to our medi-hotel arrangements. The government has used the term 'medi-hotels', but in every other state and territory it is called hotel quarantine. These hotel quarantine sites are in hotels that were built for tourists and business travellers. They were not built for keeping out a pandemic, let alone the highly contagious Delta strain we currently have.

We know we have had leaks from our quarantine system here in South Australia, and two leaks, very notably, have caused outbreaks and lockdowns. We saw the Peppers hotel outbreak, and we also saw the outbreak from the Playford Hotel that led to a lockdown in Victoria earlier this year. Even just in the last couple of weeks, we saw an awful situation, where somebody from the Hotel Grand Chancellor was able to basically walk out from hotel quarantine and go get a beer at the pub across the road, go get some KFC and some Macca's and go back in, eight hours later, I believe.

You cannot do that if you are in Howard Springs in the Northern Territory; you just cannot walk out and go to the pub, but that has been able to happen here in one of our hotels. We also clearly know the issues in relation to ventilation and their having a significant impact upon the risk of the spread of COVID-19. We know that the ventilation in a lot of these hotels in the CBD is not what it would be if there were a Howard Springs-style purpose-built quarantine arrangement.

The vast majority of other governments in the country have supported the need for permanent quarantine arrangements. I believe that every other mainland Premier has supported it except for one, except for the Premier of South Australia, who does not support it, who has not done any work, has not put any resources toward it and has not put any staff on to looking at how we could have a dedicated quarantine facility in South Australia.

In November last year, the Premier decried such an idea as apparently undermining public health officials, but a plethora of public health officials around the country are saying how important dedicated quarantine facilities are, particularly when we know that COVID-19 is going to be with us for a long time into the future and that there is going to be the continual threat of strains coming from around the world that we do not want to become significant issues here in South Australia or across Australia anywhere. As we saw with the Playford Hotel, an issue that happened here was able to spread quite quickly to Victoria.

It is fundamentally disappointing that the government have refused even to consider a dedicated quarantine facility. We now have the Howard Springs facility, which is clearly the best facility in Australia and we have not seen outbreaks of the virus in the Northern Territory coming from that facility. That is being expanded. In Queensland, the government have been pushing the federal government very hard to get approval for a new facility. They did a substantial body of work on a proposal at Toowoomba airport. That proposal was not supported. I think for a range of unimportant reasons they did not support that, including that it was not commonwealth land. However, there is now a proposal that has support and is going ahead, and construction of a dedicated quarantine facility will be starting soon in Brisbane.

Likewise in Perth, there is now agreement for a dedicated quarantine facility. Likewise in Melbourne, there is agreement for a dedicated quarantine facility. I think what we are going to see over the next few months into early next year is that these new centres are going to open up and clearly there will not be the need for hotel quarantine. We should be moving out of hotel quarantine into these dedicated quarantine facilities. We will not be able to do that here in South Australia because we have not done any work and we are not putting up any proposals to the commonwealth for any facility here in South Australia. That is incredibly disappointing.

You only have to look at the fact that the government is putting out contracts for people to provide bus services for medi-hotels well into the future, another year into the future with, I believe, another extension for another year after that, to see that the government has a long-term commitment to hotel quarantine in Adelaide. This is going to be with us for some time to come, but there is no work being put in place for a dedicated facility.

We also know that this is a very expensive proposition, and in estimates Minister Wade outlined some of the costs. I believe it was in the order of $100 million that we have spent on hotel quarantine, only a fraction of which he revealed has actually been recouped by the people who have supposedly been paying for this. Clearly, it is costing South Australian taxpayers a lot more, but we are putting that money to a model that we know is risky and that we know is seeing repeated outbreaks around the country.

There is one exception, though, which is that the government have invested in a dedicated facility but only for international students. They have embarked upon an arrangement at Parafield Airport for a dedicated quarantine facility but only for international students. I think there is a very fundamental question that should be asked: why are we doing that only for international students but not for anybody else and we are going to continue to rely on hotel quarantine well into the future?

Another very significant issue in the hands of the Premier, the cabinet and the state government, to make sure is properly resourced is the vaccine rollout. It is very disappointing that, no matter what statistic you look at, we are currently near the bottom of the ladder in terms of the vaccine rollout. Certainly, if you look at some of the statistics for people above 50 and above 70 years old who have been fully vaccinated, we are currently the worst of all states and territories in the country—certainly for 70 year olds.

If you look at the analysis that has been done by the ABC and their analyst Casey Briggs, looking at the current trajectory of vaccine rates of how close is each state and territory going to get to at least ticking off their first doses for 80 per cent coverage, we are currently sitting last out of the eight states and territories for doing that. I believe we are the only one where that figure is projected to be in November based on the current rates, whereas in every other state and territory that figure is projected to be happening in September or October for first vaccine doses.

We know the statistics also show that we have some areas with the lowest vaccine rates on a regional basis. The northern Adelaide SA4 area, which covers essentially all of what we know of the northern suburbs of Adelaide but also the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide, is sitting, I believe, 10th from the bottom of all regions in the country for their vaccine rates. That is incredibly disappointing and shows that we need additional resources, additional clinics, additional opening times to make sure that it is convenient and easy for people to get their vaccination.

We know that if you look at particularly the north-eastern suburbs, there is not a mass vaccination clinic in that area. We have been proposing that for some time. We have been working with the local community and listening to their desire for a mass vaccination clinic in the north-eastern suburbs. I commend the member for Wright and also our candidates Rhiannon Pearce and Olivia Savvas for their advocacy for a vaccination clinic in the north-eastern suburbs because that is essential to making sure that that community can be protected.

We also know that the western suburbs are without a vaccine clinic. The government put out to The Advertiser a heat map of where vaccine rates were high and low comparatively to the state average, and clearly the western suburbs is an area where we need to lift that rate. There is no clinic in the western suburbs for people to get their vaccine. In fact, the government had clinics in place in The QEH and Modbury Hospital which were set up to vaccinate their staff but which were closed down when Wayville was opened, saying that basically everyone had to go to three sites in Adelaide: Elizabeth, Wayville or Noarlunga.

When we have raised that and said, 'Either can you open this clinic at the hospital that is sitting there with all the signage in place and everything but just like a ghost town, or can you open up another one in the western suburbs.' The response we have had is, 'We can't open one. A hospital environment is not appropriate.' Then, at the same time, they still have a clinic open in the Women's and Children's Hospital, including a clinic that is dedicated to over 50 and 60 year olds.

It is unusual to say that you cannot have one at one hospital but you can have one at another hospital. Obviously, at that clinic there have been concerns raised for children who are going there for appointments, who might be immuno-compromised, as to whether the clinic is in the right place or not for the people who are going to it.

Clearly there is additional work the government can do to make sure that vaccine rate can improve. We know that the vaccine rate is behind the national average on every measure now: on first doses for everybody over 16, on second doses for everybody over 16, the same for people over 50, the same for people over 70. We are behind the national average on all those measures.

We have also raised the importance of advertising to make sure that people can come forward. I think it is very clear to South Australians that every time you see an ad on TV telling you how great the state government is, that should be an ad telling people where to get an appointment, how to get an appointment and the importance of coming forward and getting vaccinated. Getting that advertising campaign on TV is absolutely important, and this government should suspend all their other advertising—all their advertising telling us how great their spending is in the budget apparently—and put that money into advertising the vaccine rollout because that is so important for our state, for our economy and also for the protection of our community.

We can also use additional spaces. Sadly, the Convention Centre is not being used for a lot of conventions at the moment. We have seen in other states—in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth—that they are using their convention centres as vaccine hubs. Let's do that here as well and open another mass hub in the city. It is convenient for everybody in Adelaide in terms of public transport links to and from it to make sure we can get as many people vaccinated as possible.

Another very important issue—and this is something which is borne out by the evidence in the Doherty modelling in relation to the vaccine rollout and what that means for further restrictions and lockdowns in the future—is that we make sure our vaccine rate is also high amongst younger people. We asked in the estimates process what the plan is for the vaccination of schoolchildren. There is currently no plan in place. The only answer we had was that there was going to be a discussion about starting some planning work.

I think that is very much in the hands of the government. They can start that work immediately to make sure that we know we can vaccinate those aged 16 and upwards—ticked off by everybody—and we know that we can vaccinate 12 and up because that has been approved by ATAGI for people in particular cohorts and I expect it is likely to increase further in the near future. That planning should be in place now.

There are also further studies underway at the moment in relation to cohorts of people under 12. We need to do the planning to make sure that, when they are approved, we can get those people vaccinated as well. The easiest and best way to do that will be through a school vaccination program, as we have done with many other vaccines in the past.

After I had my vaccine, I checked the Australian Immunisation Register to make sure it popped up, and there it was with some vaccines that I had back in high school, which I can barely remember getting. It shows importance of a vaccine program in high schools, particularly when you are dealing with the Delta variant, which we know has an increased propensity to infect younger people compared to the original strain of COVID-19, when we did not see as many infections. I believe the statistics out of Victoria at the moment, in terms of the percentage of cases they are seeing in people under 20 years old, are quite worrying. That means that we need to do that work as soon as possible to get that planning in place.

This is something that we have been promoting since the beginning of the year—it might have been in January this year. The Leader of the Opposition and I put forward proposals and plans to the government to make sure that we could get the best possible vaccine rates in South Australia. It is disappointing that we are now so far behind what is going on in almost every other state. There is still time to turn that around, and I hope the government can do that.

Another very important thing is the preparation of our health system. As much as we support and believe the work that is being done and the decisions that are being made by Grant Stevens are the right ones, there still remains a risk that COVID-19 will get into South Australia. We need to do everything we possibly can to make sure that, if that happens, we have the facilities, the staff, the capability in our health system to cope.

You only have to look at what is happening at our hospitals each and every day at the moment to see there is a huge problem with overcrowding, ramping, delays for patients and a lack of capacity in our system as it is, let alone if we face a COVID outbreak of a significant proportion in South Australia.

One of the key issues with regard to that is making sure that there is sufficient staffing. This is not a decision made by the pandemic health officials or the pandemic State Coordinator, Grant Stevens. This is a decision made through the bureaucracy, through the ministers and through the cabinet, which has embarked upon a process of redundancies for our frontline health staff over the past year and a half, two years.

Everywhere around the world people have been hiring more staff to make sure that their hospitals can cope, but here we have been making staff in our hospitals redundant, which is absolutely the wrong approach. Over 120 frontline nurses have been made redundant by this government. If we face a significant risk, those staff are not going to be there. They have not been replaced by other people because those positions have been abolished by the government when they have made those positions redundant. That is the definition of redundancies that happen.

In the small number of cases that we had in the Modbury cluster, we saw significant numbers of health staff caught up in having been at exposure sites, particularly people who had been at Modbury Hospital, people in the Ambulance Service, people who work in other hospitals, such as Lyell McEwin in that same health network. They were unable to go to work, and we faced some significant staffing issues. At the same time, we faced significant staffing issues in being able to ramp up our testing capability.

We had people stuck in their cars for more than 24 hours trying to do the right thing, trying to get a test to protect the state. It is absolutely disgraceful that that should be able to occur, and it is a factor that the preparation for staffing reserves was not put in place to make sure that we had those people available when we needed them so we could ensure that if there was an outbreak, if there was an issue, we could put in place additional resources to make sure that people could get timely access.

I compare that to stories coming out of the ACT, I believe, of people having to wait six hours for testing. Compared to what people were doing in Adelaide, six hours sounds like a dream. A number of people I spoke to had to use nappies. It is absolutely disgraceful that there were adults who had to use nappies. This is something that the government—the cabinet, the Premier, the elected officials and the health minister, Stephen Wade—should be doing right now: increasing our health workforce now, not reducing it, to make sure that we can be prepared if something hits.

There was a lot of rhetoric a year ago, a lot of press releases saying that they were putting additional staff in place. That did not happen, we are not prepared and that is extremely concerning. There is time to turn this around, but if you look at the ramping situation in our hospitals you have to wonder: if we cannot cope right now without COVID and without the flu, how could we possibly cope if we are in a COVID situation? That is something that the government needs to do, and put in place those measures.

Very clearly as well, it is the government's responsibility to make sure that the economic relief is there for businesses that have suffered through no fault of their own but because they are following the directions that are in place, or they have been impacted by the directions that are in place—in particular, border closures and the like.

We had a protest here by people in the tourism industry. They have not had support, even though they have faced very significant reductions in their income because of border closures, which are being put in place for the right reasons: to keep us safe. But it is incumbent upon the government to put in place measures to support those businesses when they have been impacted. We have not seen that enough, and that is another thing that the elected government and the cabinet can do to help that situation.

Very clearly, this legislation deals with what is in place in relation to the Emergency Management Act. Those decisions are being made by our public servants, not by the cabinet, in particular the State Coordinator, Grant Stevens, advised by the Chief Public Health Officer. We will be following the debate in this house and in the other place, and we will be considering any proposals that do take place.

We want to make sure as always, as we have consistently through this pandemic, that our state is protected and that we have the right arrangements in place. However, we also need to apply the proper scrutiny in relation to making sure that our legislation is as good as it can be and that there is the proper oversight in relation to those measures that should be in place. With those remarks, I look forward to the further debate and the further consideration of this legislation.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (16:54): I rise to make some comments on the emergency response amendment bill and indicate that I have tabled some amendments to the bill. Time and time again, we hear the comments that restrictions will not be in place one minute longer than needed, so I am a little surprised to see a date of 30 April 2022 highlighted, which is after the next state election during caretaker mode.

When you look at the Prime Minister's comments, the federal government last month unveiled a four-stage plan to relax restrictions once 70 per cent of people are vaccinated, with stringent lockdowns highly unlikely to be required and, when coverage reaches 80 per cent, only highly targeted lockdowns will be necessary and inoculated Australians will be free to travel interstate.

The prediction for 80 per cent of people receiving the vaccination is actually December this year, as has been reported in various media forums. With that in mind, one of the amendments I will be putting forward is that we make 1 December this year the expiry date of the emergency response amendment bill. That would give the government time to assess how vaccinations are progressing and certainly to focus attention on promotion of vaccinations. That is the optional sitting week but a decision could be made in the last sitting week of parliament before that if the government did not want to come back for the optional sitting week.

That would tie in quite succinctly with what the federal government is putting out, that 80 per cent of Australians will be vaccinated by around December this year. It is really a commitment to the people of South Australia regarding these quite extraordinary measures, where unelected persons are making decisions—and I might say they have done a very good job up until this point in time—and that those powers would not be extended one minute longer than absolutely necessary in a free and democratic society such as South Australia.

The next part of what I will be aiming to contribute to this bill is that a regional representative is on the Transition Committee. Time and time again, in my electorate people are asking questions about why certain measures are in place or why certain restrictions are in place. Bear in mind that Mount Gambier is sits pretty well 20 kilometres from the Victorian border, so pretty much right on the Victorian border, yet we have not had a case of COVID-19 since May 2020. That case was a passing traveller who visited Mount Gambier who continued on their journey.

Yet there have been severe restrictions to people's liberties, including two statewide lockdowns, with certain industries being allowed to continue but certain others not. We have the timber industry, which I fully support, having a robust COVID management plan and being able to work through the lockdown period, particularly this last lockdown period. Yet construction and commercial construction of government priorities have not been allowed to be operate in Mount Gambier and, surprisingly, have been able to operate in the City of Adelaide.

Obviously, currently many people are questioning why, if we have not had a case in 15 months, we need to wear face masks around Mount Gambier. There is confusion around sitting down at a pub to consume a beer and not being able to stand up or sit at the bar, which pleasantly I have seen has changed. In all honesty, nothing has changed about the risk level for those residents of my electorate, yet the restrictions, pleasingly, are being eased a little bit.

We have had many cross-border issues to deal with. Casterton, which plays in the Western Border Football League, is not able to travel across the border at certain times, yet Melbourne clubs are able to fly in to play at Adelaide Oval, not that Casterton has had a case of COVID-19 in, I believe, the entire time it has been in Australia.

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: They had to cancel the Kelpie Muster too, which is very disappointing. Dusty and I were going over for that on the long weekend.

Mr BELL: I think they have cancelled the Kelpie Muster, correct. What we are looking at here is certainly getting some regional representation on the Transition Committee for those of us who live close to the border. I know I am not the only one, as there are also the member for MacKillop, the member for Chaffey and the member for Hammond. Even the member for Stuart pointed out to me that he has three borders to deal with. I think his exact words were, 'What are you whingeing about? I have three borders to deal with.' I take his comments on board.

The next amendment to try to improve this bill is a speedy turnaround for people in our electorate who are either stranded or just do not know what is going on with their particular case. I am going to read out a few to give some idea of this week's workload. I need to really pay tribute to my staff, particularly Denise Urquhart in my office and Travis and Kate, who are dealing with an insurmountable load of issues that come through our desk, and Bailey, who takes the phone calls at the front desk.

It appears that we do nothing else other than support constituents who are either trying to return or seeking exemptions to travel. In fact, the phone starts ringing at 8.30 in the morning and it does not stop until 5 o'clock. In fact, it rings after that, but I make them go home at five so they can get a bit of peace and come back the next day.

The frustration is whether SA Health has enough manpower, and that needs to be looked at. When we are ringing our contact person, the phones now ring out and nobody gets back to us. We send emails and nobody gets back to us. I imagine that the poor SA Health workers or the minister's office are absolutely inundated as well. There might be a level of burnout and fatigue there, and that is a clear indication that more resources need to go into that area. Even if it is a no, it allows people to plan and progress ahead.

As I said, just this week these have come in. Stan and Gloria are waiting on a farm in Broken Hill. They applied for a cross-border travel exemption 27 days ago. Not only have they not been granted an exemption but they have heard nothing back from SA Health. My office has heard nothing back from SA Health after taking up that issue and trying to progress it for them on their behalf.

I have Keith, who has returned from the USA due to an urgent family issue. He quarantined in Sydney, was released yesterday and is now in Melbourne and waiting at the Victorian border because SA Health have not been able to get back to him. He has no accommodation at the border and applied 18 days ago for that exemption.

This one got sorted out this morning. We had six year 6-7 students from Glenburnie and Mil-Lel who had a couple of students who are within the cross-border bubble, but their Canberra trip was cancelled and they were not able to travel past 70 kilometres on the South Australian side. Those students were not able to come to Adelaide as part of their school studies as a replacement trip for the Canberra trip.

Alan and Faye have been waiting over 20 days. Having sent off their applications, they are now waiting in a caravan in Broken Hill. Alan says that the most frustrating thing is just not knowing. He understands the SA Health team is busy, but the lack of communication is a concern. It impacts businesses as well. I have an engineering firm that is waiting for their risk mitigation plan to be approved. This job is a maintenance job on Australia's largest glass manufacturing business. It is worth about $350,000 to this engineering firm, and the shutdown has been planned for a number of years. They are to construct a conveyor system, but if they do not hear back soon then they will have lost that job.

Seven weeks ago, Jason and Maddy did their application as essential workers. They have 20,000 cattle over seven farms in my electorate to artificially inseminate. The value of this work plus potential offspring is in the millions of dollars. Kimberly Clark Australia (KCA) requires a technician from Honeywell of Rosebud, Victoria, to service and maintain the tissue machine scanner, moisture control and steam shower control essential to the production of toilet paper and facial tissues. The technician had been granted an exemption, but the recent application has been declined. If this machine fails, it will cost millions and millions of dollars.

Jody has a deteriorating health issue and is returning to Mount Gambier for family support. She has had both her Pfizer vaccinations; again she has been waiting weeks but still no reply. Just this morning, we have had Megan and her partner, Scott, who are in a very stressful situation. Megan has just given birth to a baby, their lease has run out in New South Wales and they do not know whether they are going to be homeless any time soon. They are trying to get to Mount Gambier for family support.

What is concerning for me as the local MP and my office is that when we are reaching out to the SA Health team we are not getting the phone answered and it is ringing out. We have people's mobiles, but they are now not answering those mobile calls. We are sending emails, but they are not being responded to. All we are trying to do is help our constituents navigate through this.

Even if the government had the attitude that everybody has COVID who wants to come back to the South-East, that would be fine. You set up a system where you allow people to travel back and they need to self-isolate until they have their COVID test on days 1, 5, 13, whatever the actual days are, and cannot leave that self-quarantine until those tests come back negative. That would allow people to progress through with some level of certainty.

Obviously, we all agree that safety is an issue and that we need to treat this very seriously, but if we go into the mindset that everybody has got it then, if you have a place to self-isolate, this is the process to travel back safely. It would speed up the process, and they would need to self-isolate until they had a negative COVID test.

I have included in my amendment for the Minister for Health to ensure that sufficient resources are available for the purpose of applications, with an aspirational target of applications being dealt with within 48 hours after they have been received. I agree that 48 hours may be a way too short time line, but people waiting over 30 days with absolutely no response is certainly an area that needs improvement.

My other amendment is just a reminder to the Transition Committee that MPs are actually on the frontline and one of the government's greatest assets. All we want to do, as I said, is to support our community. My amendment to insert section 25A relates to consideration of regular briefings. It is about making sure that we are not just watching it on TV or having to sift through a COVID direction on a website, because as soon as it is on TV or on the radio we are hearing and watching it at the same time everyone else is and then trying to determine what that means.

Of course, the calls start straightaway. People think that you are fully briefed, that you know what is going on, and in most cases they think that you have had some input into the directions because they do not quite understand how it is fully set up at the moment. We need a proactive approach that says, 'This is the threat. This is what we are looking to implement. This is what it would mean for you,' and actually be proactive as MPs who genuinely are not playing politics with this at all. They are there to assist their constituents, and the more information we get the more we can help and the more we can take the load off state government resources.

Really, what we need is somebody who can make a decision and respond in an efficient manner with a decision going forward. If the State Coordinator or a delegate of the State Coordinator is issuing directions or requiring certificates that a direction or requirement is to come into force urgently, then as soon as practicable MPs or our staff should be fully briefed. We need to be informed that this is what it means and this is how you can assist the inquiries that come in.

Whilst there are broad determinations, invariably people have very specific situations that that broad determination almost never covers. We obviously receive inquiries of a specific nature, and if we had more background and more information we would be able to assist further instead of having to refer everything to a liaison person who, quite frankly, has now stopped taking the calls and stopped answering emails. It makes it very frustrating for our constituents, it makes it very frustrating for my staff and, as the local MP, it is very frustrating in terms of trying to support the government in this emergency response in which we are all trying to do the best we can.

My intention is and has always been to be constructive in these things. I think I do that by these three or four amendments, which we will get to in the committee stage. It has been an 18-month journey now, and I think that some of these things should be in place to support us, and in turn that supports the state government, and ultimately our state and our constituents are better for it.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (17:14): I rise briefly to put on the record the appreciation and the thanks of the people of the electorate of Mawson to police commissioner Grant Stevens and all the police officers, who might be out in the cold and the wet on a border with South Australia to make sure that people coming through are checked, as well as Professor Nicola Spurrier and the health team for the amazing job that they have done for the past 18 months or more in keeping us safe.

During the most recent lockdown, I spoke to a lot of people via phone, particularly older people I just wanted to check in on and make sure that they were okay, and those people who live on their own. Everyone thought that it was the right thing to do to have a quick, short, sharp lockdown to make sure that we could stop the spread.

They were very appreciative and they talked in glowing terms of the professor. It is almost like Professor Spurrier has become a family friend to everyone with the way that she describes what is happening in her own special way. And then there is Commissioner Grant Stevens. Watching those daily press conferences, they like some of the retorts he gives to some of the media. I think there was one in particular when a journalist said, 'What if someone goes to a rally or something like that?' He said, 'I didn't see committing a crime being one of the five reasons why you could leave home.'

I think they have shown a lot of resilience and a lot of stamina to go the distance on something that we had no idea how long it would last at the beginning, back in February-March last year, and something that has continued. A lot of credit needs to go to the people in our communities as well. It is all very well for police commissioners and health authorities to explain what a community needs to do, but it is another thing for the community and individuals to actually carry out those wishes. I think South Australians have shown a great deal of understanding, a great deal of patience and, most importantly, a great deal of compliance when it comes to doing the right thing.

I think the mandate around mask wearing has been good this time. I remember the Parafield Gardens cluster last year, when the message was, 'We highly recommend people to wear masks,' and you could see people going to the shops and would think, 'Well, no-one else is wearing them. I'll leave mine in my pocket.' I think if they are highly recommended then we should just take that extra step and mandate it because when everyone has to do it no-one feels embarrassed to wear a mask.

Representing the area of Kangaroo Island is something that is a great honour, but it is also a huge responsibility in a remote community that is cut off by water. There is only one respirator on the island. The island has a very vulnerable population. A lot of older people live on Kangaroo Island, people with underlying medical conditions. I guess when I compare myself with other family members, to my colleagues in here and with my mates, I have taken a very cautious approach to the way I interact with other people. I am the butt of a lot of jokes amongst my colleagues—stuff about being a stickler for doing the right thing and probably going above and beyond—but I do not want to be the person who takes the coronavirus over to Kangaroo Island. I could not think of anything worse.

I was really happy that after a delayed start we now have the vaccination program being rolled out on the island. I am delighted to see that SA Health made the decision today to extend that to children aged between 12 and 15 as well, because you have to think of the costs for individuals and for families to get in their vehicles and catch that ferry across at this time of year. You can encounter rough weather. There is only one boat operating, so you could get stuck over here for a couple of days. The fact that the Royal Flying Doctor Service is over on the island and conducting these vaccine clinics is excellent.

I received feedback on a couple of areas, and one was that people thought that the government should have put more money and more resources into helping the health people see more people at the testing stations so they were not waiting there as long. Hopefully, that is something that has been picked up and acted upon in case we get another lockdown and we need thousands and thousands of people to be tested quickly.

The area that I think we all need to worry about is casual workers and those small to medium-size businesses that are really struggling at the moment. Being in an area that includes McLaren Vale, Yankalilla, Myponga and Kangaroo Island, we do have a lot of people who come down to our area as tourists. Just in McLaren Vale, the visitor economy with food and wine is worth $850 million a year. There are a lot of people employed in the industry and they are on casual contracts.

I spoke to a lot of businesspeople—and I thank them for their time—and asked them to explain to me the very real impacts that the shutdown has had on them. One business owner in particular wanted to keep paying his casual staff, so the shutdown cost him $20,000 in one week. He said, 'You can't keep going on like that. There needs to be a better way.'

I think last year, with JobKeeper and JobSeeker, it worked well because it kept business units together, it kept staff together and there was that safety net around people. The feedback from people was that the reality this time around is a lot more grim because staff did not know where their next dollar was going to come from and businesses did not know whether they were going to be able to continue because of the turndown in business.

Being tourism operators, there are a lot of people, like Chook McCoy from Chook's Little Winery Tours, a good mate of mine, and Mrs Chook, who have really been hit hard by the border closures. I am sure the member for MacKillop and the member for Mount Gambier would agree, too, that in places like Coonawarra and Mount Gambier wineries, when people book in and have to come across the border and then cancel, you spend your whole day refunding people's money. It is crippling to these businesses.

The federal government, I think, has put some support packages out there for businesses in New South Wales and Victoria because of the shutdowns in those states. We would just ask the federal government to consider helping out the people here who have similarly been impacted by those lockdowns interstate. I wish everyone in New South Wales and Victoria all the very best in getting on top of their cases.

I have to say that it is a miracle that we have not had more cases here. In McLaren Vale, we had the delivery drivers who went to Victoria, dropped off some stuff, including the coronavirus, and then came on, stopped in Tailem Bend on the way to McLaren Vale and spent five hours in the Vale. Thankfully, they did not stop anywhere. It was a bit in doubt for a while because their story kept changing a bit. Then they went back and stopped in Tailem Bend again.

How did we dodge that bullet, that no-one in Tailem Bend contracted the virus at the service stations, that they did not stop somewhere in McLaren Vale and drop it off? I have to say, as someone who lives in McLaren Vale, we were worried sick for over a week. This is the thing with this virus: we do not know whether it is in our community. People come up and they want to shake my hand and they say, 'We haven't got coronavirus,' and I say, 'We won't know for week or 10 days or more if we have coronavirus here.'

We do have coronavirus in those medi-hotels, which is another issue that a lot of people have spoken to me about in recent months. They have all said, 'Why haven't we got a facility that's not in the CBD, that's not a hotel designed for tourists but for people who may have a highly contagious virus? Why aren't these people out somewhere else in a specific purpose-built facility?'

Just go back to November last year when the very constructive Leader of the Opposition put forward that proposal and was laughed down by the Premier at a press conference. I have to say, I reckon about 90 per cent of the people who I speak to think it is a really dumb idea to have these people stuck in hotels where the virus can be transferred from one person to another in alleyways and through air-conditioning systems.

That is a little bit of feedback from the people of Mawson. I congratulate them on their patience, their resilience and the compliance that they have given to this. Let's hope we can get the vaccination rates up to somewhere where we can open up our society, whatever that looks like. Again, we will leave that to the police commissioner and to Professor Spurrier. We thank both those individuals and all the people who work on our frontline, including people at supermarkets, in shops, in chemists, in doctors' surgeries and in hospitals. We thank them from the bottom of our heart. We hope we can all get on with resolving this as soon as we possibly can. In the meantime, keep your chin up and hopefully we will all get there some time next year.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (17:24): I thank all members who have contributed to the discussion on the COVID-19 Emergency Response (Expiry) (No 3) Amendment Bill. I completely agree that all members of parliament in this house, particularly where they have a direct constituency, need to be commended for the extra work that they and their staff have undertaken to help South Australians get through this.

I hasten to add that I am sure the legislative councillors, those in another place, have also had some extra burden, but it is particularly acute when you have a direct obligation in relation to a geographical area within the state, where there is an expectation of representation. So, unsurprisingly, it has been a really challenging time.

As members of parliament, we are fortunate we have not had the immediate and direct impact of having lost our job during COVID. We enjoy some security of income. I say that not just as members of parliament but I think of all the people who work in my own department and I sometimes remind them of the fact that we are actually making decisions—sure, it is hard at times and we are also having to support people in our constituency to get through all this—but just remember that you have secure employment and that is something not everyone in our community has, that security of financial means.

We have heard many stories, not just in this debate but over the last 20 months or so, where people have lost income, lost security and lost people they love, and there has certainly been a massive impact on their capacity to be able to move around. At the moment, that is within the area of overseas travel and, of course, some of our states. That changes, almost on a daily basis, for whatever challenge coronavirus gives us. I do not underestimate for one moment the extra burden and workload on members in this house and their staff, particularly in electoral offices, where there is a direct expectation on the plight of the individual in their electorate and what they are trying to secure.

I do say from time to time in relation to all the different reasons why people get exemptions under our directions structure that this model is determined by cabinet. A declaration goes to the Governor, a declaration is made and the appointment of the Coordinator kicks in and directions are made. Except for the first month when we were under the Public Health Act, we have been under this model since March last year. I suppose in some ways we are getting used to it but, on the other hand, it has certainly introduced some onerous obligations.

It is a model that has served us well to date and I thank, acknowledge and echo the sentiments made today in appreciation of those in our public sector, led by Professor Nicola Spurrier in public health and Commissioner Grant Stevens as our Coordinator and his staff. There are a lot of frontline workers, but these two are often on our television screens, people know and trust them, and they have acted in a leadership role with exemplary capacity and compassion during this time.

Every now and again we do get some little gems and I will share one with you because I am not immune from having people ring me or text me with, 'You have to get my grandmother out,' or, 'You've got to help me do this.' I had a rather curious one the other day when the South Australian daughter was in New South Wales. She had sold her house in New South Wales and was trying to get back to South Australia. She had actually settled and loaded up the delivery truck. The truck had come back to South Australia and then she was not able to leave. She had nowhere to live and she of course cannot get back to South Australia to even unpack the furniture truck. People get trapped in these situations, and they are very inconvenient in that sense, and obviously she would have to find some other accommodation.

I heard today of a young couple who have had a little baby and their lease has expired and they need to get back to the South-East to have some family support. These are sometimes inconvenient, and sometimes really desperate circumstances, and sometimes they have huge financial consequences; again, we have heard some examples today of these things. If they do not have a prompt and clear answer, even if it is a no, it can have a huge impact on them in the stress period of even waiting. I say to members that I fully understand that.

Recently, I raised with the Minister for Health, as I am sure others have, this question of how quickly we can expect answers. Obviously, sometimes the answers are prompt. I am not entirely sure how the priority works myself, but obviously you have a number of categories: someone who maybe has a compassionate matter with someone who is about to die may receive some extra treatment, or someone who needs to come interstate because the state border is locked down but they are seeking an exemption or an essential employment situation.

Here is one I got on the weekend from someone who got back into South Australia from Victoria before the shutdown on Saturday night: 'Sharing the good news. It's a salute to SA Health and SAPOL.' Within two hours of this particular application to transfer because of a health issue with her mother, she was given the tick:

She/we are so grateful. It was such an easy process. Can you please thank them all for their thoughtfulness. Brilliant to see bureaucracy remain personal even in these strange times.

So every now and again you do get a little gem, when you think, 'Okay, someone actually really appreciated all that has happened.' But it has been a very ugly, frightening and frustrating time for many, so I asked the Minister for Health how we manage this. Obviously all our constituents view consideration of their particular circumstance as urgent to them. We understand that these things have to be triaged, but how do we manage the expectation of our constituency?

His indication to me was that really, realistically, with a completed application you are looking at up to three weeks before there is an expectation of process unless it has an urgent status. I think we have to understand here that, even though our constituents are desperate, they are sitting in the caravan park at Broken Hill, or they are waiting for an answer, we all have to be realistic about what can be achieved in relation to the process of these things.

I think there are a number of things we do: (1) obviously we support our constituents and (2) we convey that and we have access to the Department for Health, and I hear of phones ringing out and things of that nature, and we have all experienced that. I think it is important to electronically submit that as the circumstances and assist our constituents to make sure they have provided all the information that is necessary for the consideration of an exemption.

I had a vaccination issue recently, where information was put about the health of the patient saying, 'I need to have a different medication because I even got hospitalised when I had the flu vaccination.' The patient gets a doctor's certificate, it needs to disclose the health circumstances and it needs to go to a certain place. We need to be able to help our constituents as much as we can and our people in our offices who are receiving these concerns and then acting on them.

We need to help our constituents to be able to collate all the material they need and make sure that we have a chance to ensure that there is a minimal going back and forth, 'You need to have this or you need to have that, or you need your driver's licence.' Let's just try to make sure that we help our constituents do that.

The third thing to do, and I should mention this as I think it is important, is that, where there is some financial support available to people who are in need of that emergency support, we make sure they have either accessed money, for example, under commonwealth entitlements or state benefits to small businesses, etc., so we need to help them in that regard. These are a lot of the things we have to do ordinarily, but we just have a lot of them and we have a lot of very frustrated people.

Another thing to do, I suppose, is to give them some realistic expectation of how this will be dealt with. It may take some time. We need to be able to support them through that and not give them an unrealistic expectation of it being answered or approved. Of course, if it is not approved—and this happens, and I am sure, and most members would have had the situation—and their constituent does not have essential worker status, has not been given an exemption or does not get the emergency relief they seek, they get quite distressed. It is not easy.

There are a couple of things that we need to consider about how we address that. Firstly, can I start with the last of the matters, which the member for Mount Gambier has foreshadowed, and that is this question of ensuring that members of parliament, all of us, are able to have access to briefings in a timely manner—if I paraphrase his objective here—in relation to the directions. Let's be clear about what the directions are. They are set by the commissioner. There are a lot of people and experts we have heard about who feed into that contribution before he makes that decision.

Our Crown Solicitor's Office, as a team, drafts these up for him and they go through the detail of implementing them. They are quite long documents. If you have not gone online and read one of them, I urge you to do so because they contain a lot of information. Obviously, they try to cover off on every contingency when, for example, they have a restriction in relation to an aged-care facility about who can go in, when they can go in, what they can do, the obligations they have, whether they have to wear a mask, be immunised, and all these other things. It is quite complicated for every little thing when they introduce a new direction that restricts our lives, our access to people or the ability to move to another area.

If you have not noticed, that process is one that is changing at least twice a week lately, and it is not something that is able, frankly, to go through a lot of process, where everyone gets a briefing before a decision is made. It is not even in the model of what is to be made, of how these directions are to be made. They are to be made by the commissioner. As we have heard, there is a transition committee. There is capacity for information and advice to come in, and he ultimately makes a decision on the direction and the terms of that direction.

As a member of the cabinet and the government of South Australia, and even as Attorney-General, I can say to you that I do not have someone at any time, in the preparation of a direction, come to me to say, 'Well, Attorney-General, what's your view in relation to this proposed direction?' or, 'Do you want to have a say in relation to that?' It does not happen. It does not happen, and it should not.

Obviously, some of my agencies help support the preparation of the drafting of these things. It is not a question of us as members of parliament or even us as cabinet ministers to be part of a process that works up or develops that direction. That is something that the commissioner does on the advice that he seeks. We have heard about the Transition Committee. Obviously, our senior public health officers are integral to providing all the statistics. Let's face it, they are the risk assessors for us in relation to health, so they get that information.

I say to members that it is reasonable that you have information as quickly as possible, and an extra briefing if you need it, to be able to have the situation explained to you, particularly if your region is that under a particular area of management of an issue. I completely agree with the member for Mount Gambier about our border representatives. He is one of them, with Victoria, and the member for MacKillop, the member for Hammond, the member for Stuart—who claims he has the most in the state—and the member for Chaffey, on that side.

I do not eliminate the member for Flinders, who is our Acting Speaker today—for most of the day, before you took over Mr Acting Speaker. Our Deputy Speaker, the member for Flinders, has a massive area of sharing a border with Western Australia. I just had a cousin over there recently in Ceduna waiting to go across the Western Australian border.

Our border members have an area of extra responsibility that most of the rest of us in metropolitan seats do not have the responsibility to manage, particularly where you are living in an area, and again I refer to the member for Mount Gambier here, where there is a lot of population and communities living either side of the border. As much as the member for Stuart might think he has long distances, to be frank there is not a lot of population transfer between Charlotte Waters across into South Australia, or Innamincka into Queensland.

The reality is that those of you in the house who have borders abutting New South Wales or Victoria have a significant amount of flow of population who travel daily for work, for school, we heard about sporting commitments today and for medical appointments. They have a life that traverses the border, so any kind of direction that impedes our travel or state lockdowns has a massive impact on these people's lives. So I accept that that is something extra and it is something that you are looking to have some support in how you have not only a contribution to the directions but, more importantly for you as members, to be able to be briefed and answer questions by the constituency.

I confess that I get asked questions: 'Are we allowed to have people at the football this Saturday night?' I do not have a clue, and I say, 'Well, I will have to get that information for you,' because it might be one of the issues that has been brandished across the sports pages but not something I have actually addressed my attention to in the previous 24 hours. I accept that our constituency do expect that we know everything all the time and that they do want us to find out fairly quickly.

There is an excellent website; we do have a great service there. I urge members, if they have not already done so to do as the member for Mount Gambier has done, which I am sure many of you have already—that is, make sure that you have direct alerts and icons in your electoral offices to the SA website information on these things because it is there. Once you get familiar with that website, you will find that is very easy to navigate. The South Australian government app, and the COVID service we add as an attachment to that, really has been fantastic. I think it is something that we are just going to have to get really savvy with, and many of our offices have already. They can help quickly navigate it and get that information to our constituents.

I am more than happy to raise with the Minister for Health the matter of regular briefings with members. For country members particularly, it may be easier to have those briefings directly when you are here in parliament. It may be that it is accessible through a health service in your own local towns, where you can have a meeting face to face if you wish. I understand the member for Mount Gambier, for example, has asked for a briefing. He is having a briefing tonight with the Minister for Health, and he can get that information while he is here.

The important thing here is that if any members have concerns about this there are three things to do: one is, yes, seek regular briefings, and I think all ministers in this house have responsibility to ensure that information is provided on these briefings; sometimes the ministers cannot always attend personally, but they have members of staff to do that; secondly, identify officers who are ministerial officers and advisers who can provide information and direct communication for members of parliament; and, thirdly, assist by providing that information on how to navigate what might be available online for you or your staff. I think they are all reasonable requests.

It would be very unusual to put all those things into legislation. I know it is only being sought to have a before or after consultation. The 'before' is not within the legal structure that we have. The 'after' is something that members are able to ask for now. If any minister declines to provide information or briefings in relation to matters, then I think it is an issue we ought to address, and I would be pleased to have any information if that was a situation that was prevailing.

In relation to the second matter that was sought to ensure there be an expeditious processing of applications for exemption from any direction it seems, it says here:

…applications for exemptions from that direction—

so it is an ability to transfer from another state—

…or for any approval required before the person is permitted to travel into the State while the direction is in force, must be dealt with expeditiously…

Can I say, firstly, I think all exemptions—it might be an essential traveller, it may be a travel permit, it may be access to a nursing home, it may be an opportunity to be able to visit a prison. There might be a lot of directions that impede someone's movement. Interstate travel is not the only one. I would hope that all these things can be dealt with expeditiously.

But let's be frank. We are in the middle of a pandemic. We have the health resources in relation to the public health implementation supported by the police force under pressure with this obligation. It has to be their priority. Frankly, I think that the 48 hours is unrealistic, but it would be somewhat unprecedented to require that in a circumstance of the Emergency Management Act. I am happy for both of those issues to go on the agenda for review when we have a look at the Emergency Management Act in due course.

The first thing that was sought in relation to amendment No. 3—and these are the temporary modification amendments that are sought—is that there be a regionally based person who is able to be a part of the Transition Committee, which the government has established. The theory with this is that it would be a person who is tasked with representing the interests of persons living in areas outside metropolitan Adelaide, obviously in our rural community. I think the member has quite clearly outlined why he asked for this, and that is because they have special issues that are significant to them. Cross-border travel, of course, is a very significant one.

I indicate that I have had discussions with the Premier and members of his office who have identified that the Transition Committee, firstly, is not a committee that has a statutory base. It is something that has been created to support the machinery of the emergency management model that is currently there.

So we do not have a transition committee in a statute which says it must comprise these people with these skills or these qualifications, chaired by a person, etc. It is actually a bureaucracy. It is a developed committee that operates to support the emergency management model. So if we were to introduce some kind of regional representative onto this, it would be bizarre in some ways because we do not actually have a statutory provision for a transition committee.

What the Premier has made clear is that it comprises largely bureaucrats—that is, senior public officials from different areas—and if there were to be a senior public official to represent rural interests, it would be someone from the primary industries department. He has made inquiries as to whether somebody can be available to go on the Transition Committee to accommodate the member for Mount Gambier's request for some regional voice in relation to that.

I am instructed and authorised to provide that undertaking to the parliament that that is a commitment of the Premier to ensure that. There has been a name presented to the member for Mount Gambier and he can consider it. But I make that commitment here to the parliament of behalf of the government that a senior person from the primary industries department will be placed on that Transition Committee.

In relation to the question of substituting 30 April 2022 to 1 December 2021, which is in amendment No. 2, firstly, one of the members mentioned about the usual time frames of extension, and it has been three or four months at a time. Some thought was given to if we are extending this from a date in September when it will expire and we take into account the parliamentary sitting year and we consider the other debates that we have had in this house and we take into account that we have an election in March and, if there is federal election in March and we are pushed off into April, which is something I have already alerted the parliament is a possibility too, any new government coming in may need as long as 30 April 2022 to make a decision.

We could come back on 1 December, as foreshadowed by an amendment. If we did, the time frame for our doing that would be a situation where any bill required to further extend the COVID act would need to be assented to on 25 November 2022. Such a bill would need to be introduced to the House of Assembly on 26 October to give each house a week to consider it. This is only two sitting weeks that the bill currently before the parliament to extend the COVID act will be before the Legislative Council, so simply having this extension until 1 December means that we have to have this back in the parliament on 26 October to then go through the process to extend it past 1 December.

I know that there has been an anticipated program announced by the Prime Minister and endorsed by our government for the level of relaxation of restriction commensurate with the level of vaccination and that by Christmas we should hopefully be making sure that we have 80 per cent vaccination of those who can be or will be vaccinated in our community. We have a few months to go to be able to do that, so if we were to introduce the date of 1 December and then had to make a decision in early October to extend that, we are really not giving ourselves time to be able to do that.

The important thing to remember here is that, if you look at the whole of the current COVID act, the provision for the lapsing of this circumstance of being under emergency declarations is a date, and I am suggesting that that be April 2022 in this bill or within 28 days after the last declaration is made. So we have an expiration and, say, it comes to December and the cabinet resolves not to have any further declarations and at the request of the commissioner he says, 'I would need some time to dismantle what we have, therefore I seek 28 days after that,' then we could be out of this situation and all of this could lapse well before April 2022.

So we all get vaccinated. We have Christmas. In January, cabinet decides that we do not need to do this anymore. By the end of January, 28 days after, the whole thing could lapse. This bill makes provision for that—28 days after the last of the declaration periods or the April date in 2022, whichever first occurs.

So I would urge members—especially within the envelope of the praise you have given the Commissioner of Police, as the Coordinator, for his leadership and not just his robust attention to his duty but for his very measured and managed way—that we recognise that and make sure that we give him some level of support in facilitating that regime. We want to have the earliest collapse as possible of a restricted regime, but we also need to make sure that we have recognition of the contingency.

We had one recently where we were all shut up for seven days. We have had another situation with over 900 people in New South Wales today. Suddenly, things turn around and the whole thing goes to custard and we have to try to navigate our way out of it with extra restriction. So I would ask the house to resist the temptation of substituting 1 December 2021 in the foreshadowed amendment No. 2.

I come back to amendment No. 1 now in this reverse order that I am doing this because there are a number of things that I have raised. They are in relation to the amendments of Transition Committee representation of a rural person, 48 hours as the time to be able to get a response on direction exemptions, and the briefing to MPs, as really machinery things to deal with peculiar circumstances of what we have as MPs—and I think I have explained that—and, in particular, the country MPs who have a border issue with transfer. So I am going to come back now to amendment No. 1.

Amendment No. 1 looks fairly innocuous, but because the principal bill has some schedules to it I think I need to explain what they would do. Here, it is to substitute subsection (1) and have an expiry provision as scheduled. It is in amendment No. 1, so I will not read it out, but I will just explain this. The effect of this amendment is that new clause 1(e), as proposed, cannot be expired by me before I expire 1(e) of schedule 2, and 1(e) of schedule 2—just if you are following this; this is where it gets a bit complicated—contains the amendments that clarify that scope of the directions that the State Coordinator can make, which includes across the state.

In relation to amendment No. 3, we have just traversed those extra provisions that the member wants to have. New section 25A, which is proposed by the third amendment, does those three things: the Transition Committee, the prompt resolution of the directions and the briefing of members of parliament. I think I have canvassed those and I am happy to answer any questions in committee when we come to deal with them, but it would set up a structure where it would be frankly unworkable in relation to the dismantling of this operation. So the government could not agree to amendments Nos 1 or 2.

In relation to amendment No. 3, whilst that is not workable in the sense of being in the statute for the reasons I have outlined, I think there are three things. There will be a rural representative via PIRSA on the Transition Committee. There needs to be diligent attention to all exemptions under directions and that effort will continue. Thirdly, members of parliament are entitled to briefings and if you do not get one, that should be reported to the Premier or I in relation to information that is necessary for you to be able to advise your constituents and we would take that up on your behalf.

For those reasons, I indicate that the amendments foreshadowed would not be agreed to, but I have made the undertakings as I have indicated. Otherwise, I thank members for their contribution and remind members that we will have a complete review of this legislation post this whole period, whenever we come out of it. That is an obligation that is a commitment we have made but there are also some statutory obligations in relation to those reviews and that will then take place. I thank you for your continued support and service during this time for both this parliament but also your constituency and commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): We have a number of amendments on file, and we will get to those in due course. Are there any questions in relation to clause 1?

Mr PICTON: I wonder if the Attorney can answer or perhaps take on notice between the houses: in relation to the directions meetings that occur as part of the State Coordinator's role in determining directions, can the Attorney provide the dates that those meetings occurred, and any dates that the Premier or particular ministers or any ministerial or Premier's office staff attended those directions meetings?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I will seek some clarity at this point. Are we talking about the Transition Committee?

Mr PICTON: No.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: The directions meeting? I will take on notice for what I am able to advise in relation to those. It is the Premier or a representative?

Mr PICTON: Or ministers.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Or ministers. Okay. Certainly such that I can disclose in relation to that I will take on notice.

Mr PICTON: The same question in relation to the Transition Committee as well. So if we could get the dates of those meetings that have occurred and whether on any particular date the Premier, a minister (and which minister), or any particular ministerial or Premier's office staff have attended and on which dates.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: In relation to the Transition Committee, I am not sure but I will certainly again take that on notice. I think that is chaired by the head of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Mr Nick Reade, and the rest are public servants. I do not think there are any ministers who are members of that but, in any event, again, whatever information I am allowed to provide I will get for you.

Clause passed.

Clause 2 passed.

Clause 3.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): Member for Mount Gambier, I understand you are not wishing to move amendment No. 1 standing in your name but wish to move amendment No. 2 standing in your name.

Mr BELL: That is correct, that amendment No. 1 be removed and no longer be considered. I move:

Amendment No 2 [Bell–1]—

Page 2, line 13—Delete ‘30 April 2022’ and substitute ‘1 December 2021’

This is a date change, from 30 April 2022 to 1 December 2021. The common language around any of these extraordinary measures is that they will not be in place for one minute longer than is necessary. You have a federal government indicating that 80 per cent vaccination will occur around December this year, 2021. Therefore, it brings in line this emergency response amendment bill to a federal direction of December this year.

I do take on point the Attorney-General's comments; however, I am firm in my belief that these extraordinary measures should not be in place any longer than necessary. If indeed it is necessary heading towards that period of time, then it is up to this parliament to come back to consider any changes in the situation. If the federal government modelling is indicating an 80 per cent vaccination rate by December, then I think it is prudent for us to limit the extensive powers of this bill to that time period.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I can answer this quite heavily in response but, in short, the implication of having a 1 December date means that by 26 October we would need to have a new bill introduced back into this parliament to deal with it in November, as I have indicated, for 1 December. I do not disagree at all with the member's indication that, with the vaccination rate, getting to that golden 80 per cent is achievable. But to then put the expiry on 1 December, when we would have to come back here in October, it would be nowhere near that at that stage. Hopefully, it will be a long way down the track, and we are looking forward to that.

I just remind members that 30 April 2022 is one date that is proposed. The earlier date of expiry of the end of a declaration would mean that it could be much earlier than that. The rules would set that it be only 30 April at the outside, but if there was an earlier expiry of no longer having a declared period by the Governor, it would lapse before that. To give you an example, if the declaration period continued until 1 December, for example, as a declaration order, and the Governor no longer extended that on Executive Council's advice, that would lapse and the terms of these obligations under the COVID act would lapse within 28 days, and that is only because the police commissioner has asked for that period.

So consistently through this we have set a date ahead, or such earlier date if it lapses before that, whichever occurs first. We are not trying to extend great lengths of time. Whenever the minute comes and we have arrived at that critical time, and if it is well before 30 April, that is fine. The fact that we have an election in between and potentially have to go into April is purely there to accommodate whoever is in government after the election.

The committee divided on the amendment:

Ayes 22

Noes 18

Majority 4

AYES
Bedford, F.E. Bell, T.S. (teller) Bettison, Z.L.
Bignell, L.W.K. Boyer, B.I. Brock, G.G.
Brown, M.E. Close, S.E. Cook, N.F.
Duluk, S. Ellis, F.J. Gee, J.P.
Hughes, E.J. Koutsantonis, A. Malinauskas, P.
McBride, N. Michaels, A. Mullighan, S.C.
Odenwalder, L.K. Picton, C.J. Stinson, J.M.
Wortley, D.
NOES
Basham, D.K.B. Chapman, V.A. (teller) Cregan, D.
Gardner, J.A.W. Harvey, R.M. Knoll, S.K.
Marshall, S.S. Murray, S. Patterson, S.J.R.
Pederick, A.S. Pisoni, D.G. Power, C.
Sanderson, R. Speirs, D.J. Tarzia, V.A.
Treloar, P.A. van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Whetstone, T.J.
PAIRS
Hildyard, K.A. Wingard, C.L. Piccolo, A.
Luethen, P. Szakacs, J.K. Teague, J.B.

Amendment thus carried; clause as amended passed.

New clause 3A.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): Member for Mount Gambier, if you would like to move amendment No. 3, standing in your name. I believe you are making an amendment to the amendment, so we will move it in amended form. If you could please, for the benefit of Hansard, indicate that amendment.

Mr BELL: Thank you, Chair. New section 25A relates to special provisions relating to directions under section 25(2). It is an amendment from 48 hours to 21 days, so the sentence would read 'must be dealt with expeditiously and the Minister for Health must ensure that sufficient resources are available for that purpose such that most applications are able to be dealt with within 21 days after they have been received'.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): If you would like to move the amendment taking into account that change.

Mr BELL: Noting the change from 48 hours to 21 days, I accordingly move:

Amendment No 3 [Bell–1]—

Page 2, after line 13—Insert:

3A—Amendment of Schedule 2—Temporary modification of particular State laws

Schedule 2, clause 1—after paragraph (e) insert:

(ea) after section 25 insert:

25A—Special provisions relating to directions under section 25

(1) The Transition Committee established by the State government in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic (or any other committee formed in substitution for that committee) must include a regional representative tasked with representing the interests of persons living in areas outside of metropolitan Adelaide.

(2) If a direction is issued under section 25 that affects any person's ability to enter South Australia from another State or Territory of Australia, applications for exemptions from that direction, or for any approval required before the person is permitted to travel into the State while the direction is in force, must be dealt with expeditiously and the Minister for Health must ensure that sufficient resources are available for that purpose such that most applications are able to be dealt with within 21 days after they have been received.

(3) The Minister must ensure that Members of Parliament are provided with an opportunity to attend a briefing on the effect any directions or requirements of a kind referred to in section 25(3)—

(a) before such a direction or requirement is issued; or

(b) if the State Co-ordinator, or a delegate of the State Co-ordinator who is issuing the direction or requirement, certifies that the direction or requirement is required to come into force urgently—as soon as is reasonably practicable after the direction or requirement comes into force.

I note that 48 hours is quite a tight time line. It is acceptable to me that people have notice of their ability to re-enter South Australia within 21 days or receive exemptions within that time period. As I mentioned in my second reading speech, a number of people who contact our office and the biggest complaint and the inability for us to help them is the fact that we do not receive any correspondence or communication with SA Health. This simply puts a time period where applications are dealt with, whereas currently there are no such time periods.

I think this goes towards good governance and certainly trying to assist the department by putting a structure in place and perhaps additional resources as it states in there so that people do have assurances first of all that their application has been received and, secondly, that the unique circumstances have been dealt with and that they receive an answer within the 21 days. I have previously gone through plenty of examples where people are waiting much longer than 21 days with no response.

New subsection (1) of the amendment deals with a regional representative being tasked with or being included on the Transition Committee. Really, that is to give the unique circumstances that regional communities face and to make sure that that voice is on the Transition Committee so that, again, we can assist the government in making decisions that affect regional communities, in particular those who live on the border, as far as practicable—decisions that benefit the citizens of regional South Australia the most.

I would like to see, if it is at all possible, a sitting MP from one of those regional areas included on that Transition Committee because I think it would aid the Transition Committee in making informed decisions that perhaps make the job easier for SA Health when dealing with specific instances of people seeking exemptions or needing to return to regional South Australia in particular.

The aspect of a briefing for new subsection (3) is really around communication and the flow of adequate communication so that, as a local representative, we want to work with the state government and we want to make sure that the advice is pertinent and that we assist our constituents as much as we can to return to South Australia or have exemptions in place. I gave examples of business interests who have a COVID management plan in place so that their businesses can continue to operate and survive and of course employ South Australians. These three measures are certainly designed to assist and improve the emergency response amendment bill. It is done with genuine intent and I hope that they are accepted.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Again, I appreciate the sentiments of the member and I thank him for acknowledging the practicalities of being able to process these applications within a couple of days. It is simply not realistic, according to the information that the minister has provided, and I appreciate that.

I have given an undertaking in relation to new subsection (1) on behalf of the government and the Premier that there will be a representative from the bureaucracy, in this case, because all the other members apparently are from the bureaucracy, I am advised, in relation to this group. It is a bureaucrat's process as part of the Transition Committee. It does not exist in the statutes. It is something that is a creature of the mechanics sitting underneath the police commissioner, so it would be unusual to put it in the act, but if it is the will of the parliament that it be there, I will note the same.

I appreciate the 21 days. That helps to obviate the process. It is not in other jurisdictions, but it is there. New subsection (3) is really impractical for the reasons I have said. These things are changing sometimes on a daily basis. To think that we can have prior meetings in relation to any prospective change, when all the people have to come together to explain what the situation is and to be able to deal with it, is impractical. The whole idea of having a state of emergency is that you put a person in charge who calls for the expert advice and that can be from whatever source he sees fit, but it does not exist anywhere else in the state.

It is important, though, that it is the minister's responsibility and not the coordinator because he is the person who has been appointed by the government to do this and we are now imposing an obligation that there be a briefing provided. By whom and how do we hold up the coordinator if it is his view or that of his delegate that it is necessary to issue these proceedings?

If the concept of providing an opportunity to attend a briefing was to have access to information, we have made that very clear: ministers should be making that information available. But either we have an emergency management process where we are appointing the police commissioner to do this job without having to give briefings to any particular group as such or we do not. It does not apply anywhere else in the country. It is not the end of the world.

If it happens that the State Coordinator cannot make provisions for attending the briefing—here is the odd peculiar drafting of this—the minister must provide the briefing, yet the State Coordinator can make a direction the next minute. Do you see what I mean? We have an impractical process there.

Given the short term that this bill may apply for if it passes the parliament in the form that has been amended—that is, to come back on 1 December—I would ask that the member consider not advancing subsection (3) at the very least. I think it would be impossibly impractical. I note the amendment in subsection (2). If it is seen to be a failing, I note that you have a meeting tonight with the minister. I am hoping he will give you a proper briefing, as he should, and if there has been a failure in that between now and 1 December, I am sure the member would raise it again.

Mr BELL: Thank you, Mr Chairman. In the interests of progressing this bill, I am happy to take advice on whether I amend new subsection (3) or remove it for the period of time between now and 1 December. However, I would ask that the government of the day give an undertaking that members are briefed on changes, however that may occur. I agree to the practicality of attending a briefing and, if I had turned my mind to it, I would have taken those words out but certainly 'access information' I am very comfortable with. For the interests of expediating this bill I am happy to withdraw new subsection (3).

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): I am informed, member for Mount Gambier, that you need to seek leave to amend your amended amendment further. So you need to seek leave to make that change, if that is okay?

Mr PICTON: Can I make a contribution to be of assistance? I might make an alternative suggestion, if that is open to the member for Mount Gambier. I think everybody is of the general understanding that quite often these declarations have to be made in rapid-fire order. There have been occasions when some of them have happened in advance, when they might come in within one or two days in advance, which presumably you could enable a briefing to occur in that sort of environment before it came in.

I think the vast majority of briefings that could be provided would be after the fact of a declaration being made under the act, and hence the arrangement under new subsections (3)(a) and (3)(b). It is much more likely to be new subsection (3)(b) that would be the case almost all the time. I do think that there is the need for strengthening briefing arrangements, particularly for those members in those cross-border communities who have been bearing the brunt of the constituent issues.

I have to say, I read all these declarations or directions, and I am not sure everybody else in the state has that pleasure. They are enormously complex. If you are a layperson, to get your head around how they are drafted, how they work, it is incredibly difficult. If you are a member of parliament with a couple of staff in your office trying to do everything, to get your head around explaining them to people is very difficult.

I am personally aware that in other states they do have semiregular briefings of all members of parliament, in terms of the COVID response. The Leader of the Opposition and I, from time to time, have had some individual briefings but I do not think there has been the opportunity for members of parliament, including backbenchers, to have briefings on a regular basis. So I do think that this is a worthwhile suggestion, but perhaps my suggestion of how we could amend this would be to dispose of new paragraphs (a) and (b) and instead say after section 25(3) 'within three days' or 'within seven days'.

Seven seems to be the consensus with the member for Florey and me. That would be, I think, a reasonable proposition that would balance the needs of getting that information in place and also making sure that members can get that information that they can provide to their constituents. If there had been a number of changes made in that time then they could all be provided on that basis which, if there are regular changes, would be on a weekly basis. So, rather than withdrawing it entirely, that would be my suggestion to the member for Mount Gambier. I am happy to move it or if he wants to move an amendment to his amendment.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): I am not sure that necessarily solves the 'attend' issue. Member for Mount Gambier.

Mr BELL: If the committee pleases, a set of words similar to part 3—sorry, I am moving an amendment to the amendment.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): I am advised that you, as a member, are not able to amend your amended amendment. It needs to be a different member. I am happy, while we take a bit of time, for a set of words be drafted and then put by either the member for Kaurna or the member for Florey.

Mr PICTON: I have come to some conclusions about an amendment.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): We need a set of words to come to the table, if that is possible.

Mr PICTON: Yes, I am very happy to do that.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): Preferably ones that are succinct and sensible. I think we are there. Member for Kaurna, I simply need you to move the amendment.

Mr PICTON: I move:

(3) The Minister must ensure that Members of Parliament are briefed on the effect any directions or requirements of a kind referred to in section 25(3) within seven days.

Amendment to the amendment carried.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): We then turn to move the member for Mount Gambier's amended amendment, both by the member for Kaurna's amendment and his own previous amendment.

Amendment as amended carried; new clause as amended inserted.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Cowdrey): So we have inserted a new clause 3A.

Schedule and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (20:04): I move:

That the bill be read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT