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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2022-02-10 Daily Xml
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COVID-19 Modelling

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:43): I move:

That the Minister for Health and Wellbeing lay on the table of this council, no later than today, Thursday 10 February 2022, documents detailing full modelling commissioned by SA Health and undertaken by Professor Joshua Ross at the University of Adelaide, that projects the impact of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant in South Australia.

I speak with some frustration on this issue, and I note that originally I would have hoped to have spoken to this motion earlier yesterday, giving a full 24 hours for the production of these documents. But I recognise that at long last SA Health have now uploaded most of the information that I understand they have, but apparently not all.

At least, we would certainly hope that the modelling they have received is, in fact, a little bit more than the five slides and some explanatory notes that are currently on the website, though it would be good to be able to access all of the information now. I reflect that it certainly would have been better had this information been provided to the several select committees that have investigated what is going on in this state under the COVID-Ready phase post 23 November and indeed since the knowledge of the Omicron variant.

Given the brevity of what SA Health has released to date, I certainly hope that that is not all the information that in fact the Chief Executive of SA Health, Dr Chris McGowan, told the COVID-19 Response Committee to go and FOI for ourselves if we wanted to see it. I note with great disappointment this flippant response to our request for this modelling by the Minister for Health and Wellbeing yesterday, or this week, when he said:

The Department for Health and Wellbeing has been progressively releasing modelling that has been produced by Professor Ross and will continue to do so.

There are, I suppose, two silver linings to that response: first, the government finally admit that what they are using is not Doherty Institute modelling but, rather, modelling from a professor who is a member of the Doherty Institute and, second, I am going to take that statement as a commitment from the minister that SA Health will, in future, be more transparent with their modelling and release it in a timely manner without the parliament or its committees needing to demand it in this way.

I do note, though, that he might want to check in with his own department on this topic, given Dr Chris McGowan's previously stated response to the COVID-19 Response Committee:

It's not my intention to release the entirety of all the models and the iterations of it that come through on a regular basis for our particular issues.

I fear that I sound like a broken record in this place, but it is a good tune as I continue to lament the lack of transparency, accountability and accessibility when it comes to the science. This government consistently claims to rely on that science but does not share it willingly. This is not only poor form from a scientific perspective but it is inconsistent with the way scientific modelling and information has been shared throughout this pandemic.

Globally, we have seen journals provide free access to papers relating to COVID. We have seen data sharing agreements between agencies, all in the name of good science. In fact, some of the largest journals and research databases are providing COVID-19 literature and research for free, including sources like ProQuest, Springer Nature, Wiley, Elsevier and JSTOR. This is because the global community recognises that sharing information with the public, not just with those who would normally have exclusive access to it, is vital to community trust and to our collective understanding of COVID.

I would like to note some key messages on the need for open science in combatting COVID-19, as outlined by no less than the OECD:

In global emergencies like the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, open science policies can remove obstacles to the free flow of research data and ideas and thus accelerate the pace of research critical to combating the disease.

While global sharing and collaboration of research data has reached unprecedented levels, challenges remain. Trust in at least some of the data is relatively low and outstanding issues include the lack of specific standards, coordination and interoperability, as well as data quality and interpretation.

To strengthen the contribution of open science to the COVID-19 response, policymakers need to ensure adequate data governance models; interoperable standards; sustainable data sharing agreements involving the public sector, private sector and civil society; incentives for researchers; sustainable infrastructures; human and institutional capabilities; and mechanisms for access to data across borders.

I think this government should give the community some credit. The modelling, to the great credit of Professor Joshua Ross, is very easy to understand when considered in its entirety, as his notes have been consistently very clear and concise in the past. It is frankly insulting to have heard SA Health, or the head of SA Health, dismiss the modelling as too difficult for the parliament or the public to understand, particularly given the previous modelling had been released in full.

I am quite confident that none of this is too much to ask of this government and of SA Health, particularly in the context of an ongoing pandemic and particularly in the context of the ongoing uncertainty that the public faces due to this pandemic.

We already know that the public trust in this government's handling of the pandemic is taking a hit. At least if we have clear and ready access to the modelling on which the decision-making is based we can have a better understanding of the measures we are being asked to comply with and, importantly, we will have better oversight, transparency and accountability over that process. That is what is expected in a democracy. That is what is expected in a pandemic.

If all of this information and modelling that the government and SA Health have received has been released, then I am sure there will be no objection to this motion and it will take you just one minute to send it all through in the link to the page where it has already been uploaded. I commend the motion.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (17:50): It is a pretty sad day when a chief executive of a government agency refuses the request of a committee, a committee of this house, for information about modelling of a disease pandemic that we are going through right now on the basis that well, he is rather busy and on the basis that 'Well, you wouldn't understand it anyway.' What select committee in the past would have been faced with a chief executive of a government agency responding to a polite request for information with, 'You won't understand it, chaps,' and, 'I am too busy to give it to you'? It is an outrage.

I am so pleased, and also so disappointed, that it has taken a motion of the Hon. Tammy Franks in this chamber to scare a chief executive into producing documents. It is an absolute outrage. The Chief Executive of the Department for Health and Wellbeing was asked at a select committee, the South Australian parliamentary COVID-19 Response Committee, to release this documentation. Dr McGowan was asked by my colleague the Hon. Emily Bourke MLC why SA Health had not released the full updated modelling on the Omicron variant, as they had done in the past with other modelling and indeed as they did with the Delta strain modelling.

The answer that we heard, as I said, from Dr McGowan was, 'There's a lot of it and most people can't understand it.' When pressed further, instead of being willing to provide the select committee of this chamber with that information and also provide it to the South Australian people, Dr McGowan's was response was to refer anyone who wants it to FOI it—to FOI it. I ask you, Mr Deputy President, have you heard of any chief executive of a government agency doing that to a select committee of this chamber? I have to stretch back a long way and I do not think I can actually recall such a petulant response to a polite request.

At a time when the government is calling on the public to heed its public health messages, to trust them about what they are saying to the public, 'Get vaccinated. Get boostered,' you would think he would openly and transparently provide the information to whoever wants it—the media, the parliament, the public—the basis on which they are making these messages to the public. You would think a chief executive of the Department for Health would fall over himself to provide that information to whoever requested it, but not Dr McGowan.

I struggle to see how releasing the documentation would have been difficult for him. He had it. Presumably he had it already in e-format, and he could have just instructed or caused someone to release it, as I understand from the Hon. Tammy Franks' contribution they have now done today. Not a great effort at all. If it was a great effort, we might have listened to a reasonable argument about it, but he had it. He had it already, and it was a very easy thing for him to do.

We deserve the full story, as we were given in the past. Has Dr McGowan considered what his actions might engender in terms of people's suspicions of him, his agency and this government? They released the information in the past openly and transparently, and that was good. Then, when they were asked for it again, they said, 'No, you can't have it. It's too hard. You won't understand it.' The natural instinct of people is to say, 'What are you hiding? What don't you want us to see in this information that you have in your hands and that you won't release?'

That is a disaster for public health messaging. It is a disaster for the administration of good governance in this state when a chief executive of an agency does that to a select committee of the Legislative Council. I want to remind Dr McGowan that, however bad his day was, this chamber has the ability to call him before the bar and ask him and instruct him to release documents. If this is his attitude into the future, he should dwell on that fact.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:54): I thank those who made a contribution: the Hon. Ian Hunter. I note that I had hoped to move this motion and speak to it yesterday, giving the minister a full 24 hours to provide the documentation.

I clarify that we do not believe the full documentation has actually been released. We believe that some slides that supported a presentation have been released, but certainly, should that be wrong and that was the full documentation, we are happy to be corrected. This motion calls for the release of the full modelling commissioned by SA Health and undertaken by Professor Joshua Ross earlier this year and that actually projects the impact of the COVID-19 and the Omicron variant in our state.

I note that what is available does actually indicate that in April, with the uptake of boosters potentially waning but assuming that the uptake of boosters would be continuing to be as strong as when the modelling was first done, we would in fact see renewed restrictions. We are certainly interested in that information. That is simply one paragraph, however, and what appears more to be the cliff notes rather than the full documentation that we seek today.

I am not sure with the passage of this motion whether or not the Minister for Health and Wellbeing will front this chamber. Certainly, it is calling on him to lay some documents on the table of this council, so I would be expecting that those documents would be laid on the table of this council before we rise today. The Treasurer scoffs, but seriously—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: We will come back Tuesday.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: I have no desire to come back.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: I am sorry, the Treasurer should not be scoffing at the idea—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order, Leader of the Opposition and the Treasurer! You don't even need to jump in.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: —that the Omicron variant modelling be released in full, as the Delta was, as previous modelling was. We are often told we are in a pandemic. The thing is: why has the practice changed and why is there such contempt shown to a select committee of this parliament not to simply provide what is, you would think, an apolitical document. With that I commend the motion.

Motion carried.

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