Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier supports plan to bring 300 international students into South Australia
Next month international students will return to South Australia to help rebuild our economy and community – a move opposed by most respondents to a poll, but fully supported by our chief health officer.
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Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier fully backed plans to bring 300 international students back to South Australia in a letter to Steven Marshall, saying it could be managed safely with “great success”.
In the July 29 letter, Professor Spurrier advised overseas students could safely return to Adelaide using the same health and police protocols “that were successfully adopted for the return and quarantine of Australian citizens following repatriation flights”.
The letter also revealed the initial plan was to fly students back in two cohorts, on August 23 and 31, but logistics had pushed the flights back to September.
Prof Spurrier advised SA’s current hotel quarantine capacity levels and resources had “not been reached and would allow for the safe arrival of these returning students”.
“The pilot will be underpinned by SA Health’s commitment to protect the South Australian community by ensuring quarantine protocols are strictly adhered to,” she wrote.
“I am confident that, should commonwealth approval be obtained, that this pilot initiative can be delivered with great success and provide a significant boost to multiple sectors of the economy, including education, accommodation, food and transport services.”
An SA Health spokesman backed the advice on Monday, saying: “We have been safely managing hundreds of returning Australians in our medi-hotels since April and our quarantine process is very stringent.”
This morning, Health and Wellbeing Minister Stephen Wade said students flying in from Singapore to attend university would travel on scheduled passenger flights rather than repatriation flights.
“This is not a situation where students will be displacing citizens returning to Australia,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
He noted the flights are mainly used to carry freight and there is ample room for the student passengers, who will be required to undergo supervised hotel quarantine on arrival.
Eighty per cent of more than 16,000 respondents to an advertiser.com.au poll did not support bringing international students back to the state during the pandemic.
Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said Labor backed international education as “vital” to the state’s future, but did not support a trial to return students: “There are many families in SA who haven’t seen loved ones, who haven’t seen people that might have cancer or are having new babies interstate, and they’re taking that on the chin … this seems to be contradictory to that situation.
Trade Minister Stephen Patterson said international education, which is SA’s biggest export, “will be critical to our economic recovery post the COVID–19 pandemic”.
“The international education sector underpins more than 12,500 local jobs and contributes $2 billion to South Australia’s economy,” he said.
“As the first mover, this pilot program will help further strengthen our reputation as a premier student destination.”
International boost to our state
International students returning to South Australia will pump $15m into the economy this year, according to Government estimates.
But Bec Hardy Wines managing director Richard Dolan, who moved to Adelaide as a mature-age student from Britain in 2002, says the value goes beyond a dollar figure.
He said international students helped local businesses expand into overseas markets and brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the state, as well as injecting money into the economy through retail, rent and travel.
The SA wine company’s export manager, Xianrui Zeng, is also a former international student from China, who opted to stay in SA, where he met his wife.
“To have somebody like Xianrui in our business, who assists us with an understanding of a different culture, who speaks fluent Mandarin; that is vitally important for wine businesses and all the agribusinesses in this state if we’re going to connect with international markets,” Mr Dolan said.
He understood community apprehension about overseas travellers returning, but backed SA’s management of the pandemic to date.
International Education Association of Australia chief executive Phil Honeywood said the sector had needed to show “proof of life”, as it was losing students to Canada and the UK.
“These students will not be costing the taxpayer a dollar and will actually be pumping money back in through rental accommodation, through food, entertainment, back into the Adelaide economy,” Mr Honeywood said.