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

Contents

Coronavirus, Hotel Quarantine Workers

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:33): My question is to the Premier. When was it that the Premier voiced his concerns about hotel quarantine workers not undertaking seven-day testing consistent with cross-border communities, as he said on ABC radio yesterday? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PICTON: Yesterday, on ABC radio the Premier said, 'I did query that situation, but I was provided with advice that what we were doing was based on best practice at the time.'

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:33): I don't recall when I had that conversation, but often I'm presented with thoughts from people who have suggestions on how we should be handling this disease. We have made a decision right from day one to defer to the experts in South Australia, and we have been very, very well served by the experts within SA Health, both within SA Health as an organisation but, in particular, the public health administration unit, which is headed up by Professor Nicola Spurrier.

I often take these suggestions to the public health administration and they provide feedback on that. In this instance, when I asked that question they were able to provide and point me to the detail that the AHPPC had done on this work and the reasons behind why we didn't have that mandatory test in place.