SA Opposition calls for medi-hotels, repatriation flights to be stopped

The Premier says it’s “disgusting” that the Opposition wants to immediately stop repatriation flights and the medi-hotels quarantine scheme.

Peppers Hotel on Waymouth Street where a worker tested positive for coronavirus. Picture: Simon Cross

The controversial medi-hotel program and all repatriation flights into South Australia should be suspended indefinitely, Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas says.

Mr Malinauskas has written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier Steven Marshall calling for an urgent review of COVID-19 quarantine options.

But in a fiery response, Mr Marshall on Sunday said it was “disgusting” to suggest South Australians should be banned from returning home or placed into a detention centre to quarantine.

He accused Mr Malinauskas of “jumping on a bandwagon, undermining health experts in SA”, said the suggestion was impossible from a logistics perspective, and maintained it was vital to keep international trade routes to Adelaide open to export local produce.

The trial to fly international students to SA has been postponed until 2021.

Mr Malinauskas told the Sunday Mail there should be an immediate and indefinite end of international arrivals as well as the medi-hotel scheme until a safer alternative was found.

He has not ruled out backing plans to process overseas arrivals at Outback Woomera or Christmas Island.

The State Government has already announced a suspension of international arrivals until December 1.

“It is now crystal clear to all concerned that the medi-hotel arrangements in the current format – of housing people with the virus in CBD hotels in proximity to subcontracted private security guards – is not safe,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“Both the Premier and (SA’s chief public health officer) Nicola Spurrier have quite rightly pointed out that this arrangement brings with it high risk and that risk is simply not tolerable in the context of the devastation caused to the South Australian economy as a result of the outbreak from a medi-hotel.

“There have been references to places like Woomera and Christmas Island and other arrangements; clearly the current arrangement is not satisfactory.”

Leader of the Opposition Peter Malinauskas. Picture: Tom Huntley

Mr Marshall said he has asked Mr Morrison to stop repatriation flights until December 1, to give the state capacity for local cases should the Parafield cluster develop further.

“It is really important that we play our role in the national repatriation of Australian citizens, but also this helps us massively in terms of having routes for our exports so planes that come in with citizens go out with South Australian produce to the world,” Mr Marshall said.

“Obviously, we work hand in glove with the Federal Government and the AHPPC (Australian Health Protection Principal Committee) to make sure that we minimise the risks associated with running medi-hotels, but we also need to recognise that there will always be some risk associated with managing this highly contagious disease.”

Moving medi-hotels to remote locations in South Australia has been backed by local experts.

On Thursday, UniSA epidemiologist and biostatistics Professor Adrian Esterman questioned why SA continued to operate high-risk quarantine hotels in the middle of the city when it is safer to quarantine people away from communities.

In a recent national review of hotel quarantine, former secretary of the commonwealth Health Department, Jane Halton, said consideration should also be given to the establishment and maintenance of a national facility in reserve to facilitate large-scale evacuations from international ports.

A medi-hotel kitchen hand who lied about working at a pizza shop triggered the lockdown.