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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-08 Daily Xml
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Coronavirus

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (15:12): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding public health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: The Queensland government today banned travel to a number of its state's islands, including Fraser Island. A person who does not live on these islands will not be permitted to travel to any of the islands except for a few exemptions around essential services. The Kangaroo Island Council has asked the state government to impose a similar ban on travel to Kangaroo Island. This has not yet happened. My questions to the minister are:

1. What expert health advice has the minister received around implementing travel restrictions to Kangaroo Island?

2. Does the health system on Kangaroo Island have the capacity to deal with a COVID-19 outbreak on the island?

3. What are the health risks for people who are not from Kangaroo Island heading over to the island over the Easter long weekend?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:13): It is not the intention of the government to issue a direction to stop people going onto Kangaroo Island. One of the factors relevant there is that this is an island that is still in recovery and there are a lot of people needing to support the recovery.

As I have said in this house before, we are very willing to take action to restrict movements where we consider it necessary. We didn't issue a direction in relation to Barossa Valley, but we certainly discouraged—doubly discouraged—non-essential travel in and out of the Barossa in response to a cluster there.

Also, the state law has been, as I understand it, supporting Aboriginal communities to restrict movements in and out of those communities, and that has been backed up in relation to nine communities in South Australia by a commonwealth Biosecurity Act restriction on movement. We certainly don't rule out regional restrictions on movement, but the government does not consider that it is appropriate in the context of Kangaroo Island.

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