Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-09-24 Daily Xml

Contents

AFL Grand Final

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:07): How can it be hypothetical if you are putting a plan—

The PRESIDENT: No explanations. Just ask the question.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I challenge that it is hypothetical, minister, because detailed plans would have been given to the AFL about who would be allowed into South Australia.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:07): I am happy to give way on whether it is hypothetical or not. I am also happy to seek information from SA Health on the strategies they used. It might be a good opportunity just to pay tribute yet again to the Stadium Management Authority, one of the most creative agencies that SA Health has been working with, for being, in my view, a testbed for COVID-safe practices which will be useful for years to come.

I think it is really important for every member of this council, as leaders within their community, to try to guard against what seems to be a prevailing attitude that we will have a vaccine in January and it will all be over. The reality is there is a long way to go in this pandemic. It is very unlikely that a vaccine will serve as a silver bullet. Even if it did, it would take months to roll out. We have a long way to go in terms of maintaining a dynamic approach to mitigating the risk of COVID-19. The answer to the question on notice may well give us further food for thought as to what we need to do as a society to be COVID-safe.