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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-23 Daily Xml
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Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:39): My question is to the Premier. Given the Premier has conveyed to the house this afternoon that the Premier's Facebook page is a personal Facebook page, why are the emails and websites on the Premier's Facebook page at premier.sa.gov.au official government websites?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:39): I am the Premier of South Australia. I think it's reasonable—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —I think it's pretty logical—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton is called to order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that you might promote that. I have just had a look at the Facebook that the Leader of the Opposition seems to be complaining about at the moment. I don't know what he is complaining about. There seems to be a lot of very good news for South Australia on there at the moment, used to promote the fact that South Australia is the most livable city in Australia and the third most livable in the world. There are posts there fantastically advocating for the full cycle docking to come to South Australia, and guess what? It did! And the life-of-type extension and the Hobart-class upgrade—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —are to come here to South Australia. There is some fantastic news on there about the opening up of the Happy Valley Reservoir, which will happen in December. Those opposite hate that policy. They are probably going to close it. They hate good news. There's a lot of very good news on there, particularly with regard to the redevelopment, the revitalisation of the Repat precinct.

We know the Leader of the Opposition closed the Repat. He broke the hearts of South Australians who absolutely believed in that precinct. He closed it. We are spending a huge amount of money. I was down there on the weekend and it's promoted on my Facebook. I was down there on the weekend as we were making more beds available so that people can have that transition from hospital back to home in a more conducive environment. It will also take the pressure off our hospital system in South Australia. And, yes, there is some excellent information with regard to vaccination—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hurtle Vale!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —here in South Australia. I love the post that says that we have now had more than 1.5 million doses administered here in South Australia. At the moment, we are around 100,000 doses every single week in South Australia as we get towards—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hurtle Vale!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —the 80 per cent vaccination rate for those 16 and over. We know that when we do that we will be able to end statewide lockouts and also make sure that we end those state lockdowns in South Australia. It's a really important policy and we want to—

The SPEAKER: The Premier will resume his seat. The member West Torrens rises on a point of order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Standing order 98: while this information might be useful generally, the question was not about the COVID-19 vaccine rates. It was about whether or not the Premier's private Facebook page had government contact information on it.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. A certain amount of context in response to the question and the nature of the use of the Facebook page and the range of purposes to which it's used is, in my view, appropriate. The Premier, however, should confine his answer to the substance of the question. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Back to the substance of the question, which is whether or not we did direct people or, if you like, provide people information to official government websites and information. There is nothing wrong with that. By contrast, those opposite just put out dodgy information. The Leader of the Opposition recently has had to retract some of the dodgy information he has put out there, incorrect information, misleading information—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —which he was forced to retract and apologise for.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: By contrast, what we are doing with my personal Facebook site—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Wright!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —is directing people to real information, official information that's going to give people the information they need to keep our state safe and our economy strong, rather than fearmongering, rather than spreading false information around—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Wright!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —which undermines the great work that SA Health are doing in South Australia. It must be humiliating for the Leader of the Opposition to have to do withdraw that information—

The SPEAKER: The Premier will resume his seat. The leader rises on a point order.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: The exact same point of order that was raised by the member for West Torrens and upheld by you: debate. The question was very specific. The opposition would be very grateful if the Premier could just answer one question today.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I will rule on the point of order. I have upheld the point of order raised by the member for Torrens and, as the leader indicates, there is nothing terribly novel about the point of order that the leader raises. The Premier will confine his answer to responding to the substance of the question. The alternative is that we can move on. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Yes, of course, we do highlight where there is official government information and I personally would hope that the Leader of the Opposition would be doing the same thing. If he is not pointing to the official information, what information is he pointing to? I have given the chamber one example of the false and misleading information that he has provided to the people of South Australia, which he had to withdraw and apologise because it was false and misleading and it undermined the confidence the people of South Australia had.

By contrast, what we are doing is providing people with access to that official information. It's accurate, it's timely and it's going to help us get out of the situation that we currently find ourselves in with the Delta variant.

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