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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-10-13 Daily Xml
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Coronavirus, Travel

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:34): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding border exemptions.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Yesterday, the Premier said in relation to the 11 exemptions for Port Adelaide families, and I quote:

You know, there was no finding that this was widespread or that there were other areas. This was an isolated incident.

Yet, the scope of the review does not seem to include the review of any other cases. Given that, my questions are:

1. How does the minister know this was an isolated incident if other cases haven't been reviewed?

2. How many other exemptions have been granted by a single officer without going to an exemptions committee for review?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:35): The main reason why I am confident that this is an isolated incident is the clear public health outcomes that we are experiencing in South Australia. Let's be clear: we had our first identified cases in South Australia on 1 February. We are now months after that, yet we have experienced, of the 475 total cases that we have identified, that only 1.9 per cent of those—1.9 per cent of those—are locally acquired/contact not identified/no interstate travel.

That is an extraordinary result when we are waking up day after day hearing tragic stats coming out of countries not at all dissimilar to our own. The public health achievements of Nicola Spurrier and her public health team are extraordinary. One of the reasons why I am confident that this error of judgement was an isolated error is because of the clear progress that we are making in public health in terms of this pandemic.

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