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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-08 Daily Xml
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Emergency Management (COVID-19) (Kangaroo Island Arrivals) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:10): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Emergency Management Act 2004. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:10): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Australia is in a reasonably fortunate position as we look at the global outbreak and spread of the coronavirus. Because we are an island and we have lagged the rest of the world, we have been able to close down our borders, and we have seen other islands around Australia—firstly, Tasmania, Norfolk  Island, Stradbroke Island and other Australian islands—close down to try to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to these island communities, which are very rarely able to deal with medical emergencies.

Kangaroo Island is one of those islands that needs to be closed down, and it is something that the population of 4,500 on Kangaroo Island has been calling for for several weeks. In fact, Kangaroo Island Council passed a motion last week 7-1 for the island to be cut off from the mainland except for essential travel in times of medical emergencies, or medical treatment, or for goods and services that cannot be provided from people on the island, which may be needed for the bushfire recovery we are undertaking on Kangaroo Island, and for other reasons agreed to.

These rules that I seek to introduce today would be along the lines of the rules that we have as a state with our border enforcement to make sure that people are not coming into South Australia unless they have a valid reason to do so. If they are coming to the island, then they will need to self-quarantine for a period of 14 days, as people coming into South Australia do. If people from the island need to leave and go to the mainland they, too, would have to go into self-quarantine for a period of 14 days upon their return to Kangaroo Island.

Kangaroo Island has had a pretty tough time of it since the bushfires, which started over there on 20 December and which burnt for several weeks. We lost 89 homes and we lost two lives, and a lot of people are still not in their own homes. Those who are out on their properties are often in a fairly remote part of the island. Let's remember, it is not a small island: it is 4,500 square kilometres. The people particularly down at the west end of the island are feeling quite isolated as they are out on their farms trying to rebuild their lives, putting up fences, restoring sheds that were lost and living in makeshift homes or staying with friends or relatives.

One of the things that people on the island were really looking forward to was the return of some normality—the return of things like the football and the netball seasons, where people leave their farms to come out and play, train and spectate, have a drink, have conversations and mix with their fellow islanders. Three or four weeks ago, it was being proposed that if Kangaroo Island could be shut down it may indeed help to get some of those activities back up and running that are not possible in a community with wider access.

The island is fortunate in many ways in that the only way people can get to or get off the island is via a ferry or via aircraft, so it is easy to control. An order from the government to the airlines and to the ferry providers can make it easy for those companies to refuse people getting on their ferries and on their planes. It is something that I know the vast majority of Kangaroo Islanders really want and I think it would make it easier for ferry operators as well. I know that Kangaroo Island Connect has closed down their operations because they do not think it is the right thing to do to have people coming to the island at this time.

SeaLink not only provides for passengers and vehicles to get over but is also the crucial freight link between the mainland and the island. I know there are tensions there with the fact that they have to run a commercial operation and it is not really their job to decide who can come to the island and who cannot. They are seeking direction as well. I know that the staff at SeaLink, the crews who have to interface with the public, would really like the government to come down and say, 'You can only come to the island if you have a valid reason to do so, if you are an essential traveller.' Of course, the freight lines to the island would need to be kept in place.

I really urge everyone in this chamber today to get behind this bill, to get behind the people of Kangaroo Island. I know that the Premier and the cabinet keep saying that they listen to the advice of the experts, but we live in a democracy where we represent the people of South Australia. In my case, I represent the people of Kangaroo Island. In the cabinet's case, every member of cabinet represents the people of Kangaroo Island as well. I would like to implore members of the cabinet to consider the expert advice of the people who live, work, go to school and run their businesses on Kangaroo Island because I think they have a pretty good insight into the way their part of the world runs.

The police commissioner, who is the State Coordinator, has done a terrific job. I do not want to take anything away from the role that he has played, that the Premier has played or that anyone has played. If we look at this at a state, federal and local government level, I think everyone has done things in an exemplary way, but there are tiny little things like this that we need to draw out and bring to the attention of the parliament to see if we can follow the wishes and desires of the people of a part of our state that can be cut off quite easily to see if that can indeed happen.

The police commissioner has said that Kangaroo Island will not be treated any differently from any other part of South Australia. Well, Kangaroo Island has always been treated differently from other parts of South Australia. It has had to be out of necessity because that piece of water that separates it from the mainland means that people on the island have to pay more to get out and about. People on the island have to pay more for their freight and all their goods because of the freight costs that are added on.

People on the island have always had to pay more for their fuel because of the freight costs that are added. People on the island have also been fortunate in that many diseases and pest species, both animals and weeds, have not made it to Kangaroo Island. At the moment, it is illegal to take a potato, bees, honey, foxes or rabbits to Kangaroo Island, but we have no law that keeps people off Kangaroo Island who may be carrying the coronavirus.

As we head to Easter this weekend, I know there are people lining up to go over to the island. People have told me, 'I've got a holiday house over there, so it's my right to go over there.' I say, 'But you might have the coronavirus,' and they say, 'I haven't got the coronavirus.' Well, 65 per cent of the people who have passed on the coronavirus did not know they had the coronavirus. If anyone tells me that they do not have it, unless they have been locked up at home since December I cannot believe them because nobody knows with any absolute truth whether or not they have the coronavirus.

I cannot see any reason why we would adjourn today a move that the people of Kangaroo Island desperately want done, because the time for this action to be taken was two weeks ago. It definitely needs to be taken today before we hit Easter this weekend and before more people come to Kangaroo Island.

I ask everyone in this place to please listen to the people of Kangaroo Island and to give them a hand in their time of need. I know that everyone in the world, everyone in Australia and everyone in South Australia is suffering, but for the people of Kangaroo Island this is another layer of suffering on a community that has suffered possibly more than most communities in Australia have ever suffered. There is hurt, there is homelessness and there is grieving still going on from the bushfires that burned from 20 December for more than a month.

The rebuild is happening. We need to get people back out as a community on Kangaroo Island because the mental health problems that people are experiencing now will become worse through the isolation as people have to remain in their homes and are unable to get out and mix with fellow islanders to share their burden, to share their grief and to share the emotions they are forced to suffer alone at home.

People out on their farms down the west end tell me that when they could go to footy or to netball that was something that would force them off the farm. It was something that told them what day of the week it was. But at the moment, because they cannot leave, they just stay out there, fixing the fences, doing what they can around the burnt-out wreckage of their farm with no punctuation marks, nothing to tell them that it is not Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday. Every day is the same because there is no coming together and there is no gathering point.

Had the wishes of the people of Kangaroo Island been brought in four weeks ago and this style of travel ban introduced, these people may have been a little bit closer to having life be a little bit more normal than it has been for them. I hope that we can get support for the bill to amend the Emergency Management Act 2004 so that we can curtail non-essential travel to Kangaroo Island while we, as a state and as a nation, deal with the coronavirus that has hit South Australia.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Pederick.

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