House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-11-17 Daily Xml

Contents

Coronavirus, Hotel Quarantine

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:26): Supplementary question to the Premier: given the heightened risk associated with medi-hotels and their workers, why wasn't there the so-called belt-and-braces approach prior to this infection?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:26): Again, sir, I feel like the questions are coming and I'm just repeating the answers that I have provided in the previous answer, but I'm more than happy to go through it. The AHPPC advice was very clear, and best practice was to have a mandatory declaration on arriving at work. When the AHPPC had gone and looked at what was happening in other jurisdictions around the world, they found that having a weekly or fortnightly test actually didn't offer the protection that the daily declaration offered in Australia, so for this reason that was the standard. That is the standard that is adopted by every jurisdiction around Australia.

What has occurred with regard to this infection is that the mandatory declaration of any symptoms didn't work in this instance because there were no symptoms. This is uncharted territory, and that is the reason why we now have the daily declaration for any symptoms prior to people beginning any work, the protocols if people develop symptoms while they are at work and, of course, the additional metric of a weekly test, the first anywhere in Australia.