Matt Smith analysis: Easing of hospitality restrictions may have exposed a rift between SA’s top cop and the Chief Public Health Officer

Rumours of a rift between Police Commissioner Grant Stevens and Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier have been swirling – and the friction was laid bare on Friday morning.

For the past nine months there are no words Premier Steven Marshall has uttered more than “we need to listen to the expert health advice”.

From the moment the coronavirus reached South Australia it is a term he has relied upon to explain how his government would tackle the virus.

It has been a blanket and a get out of jail free card.

In the main, it has served him well.

He is right in his view that injecting politics into the decision-making process is fraught with danger.

One only needs to look to Donald Trump’s handling of the virus in the United States, where more than 275,000 people have died, to see that.

But “relying on expert health advice” has also increasingly becoming a difficult proposition politically.

That has been made very clear this week.

In political circles rumours that there is a growing rift between the most public figures of the powerful Transition Committee – Mr Marshall, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens and South Australia’s Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier – have reached a fever pitch.

They are overstated, but that is not to suggest that there is not something to the whispers.

And frictions have now been laid bare.

Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

On Friday morning Mr Stevens suggested social implications, in the form of Christmas festivities and the impact of restrictions on the hospitality sector, had been given greater weight when the Transition Committee met.

It resulted in a mid-step lifting of restrictions by changing capacity requirements from one person for every four square metres to one person every two square metres.

Both stressed that tensions in the Transition Committee were natural and the working relationship remains as strong as ever.

Mr Stevens said there are always “professional, constructive, discussions.”

“This is not the first time we have had a different set of views coming out of Transition Committee,” he told reporters.

Professor Spurrier agreed, arguing that it has been hard to determine risks associated with the latest outbreak.

“We all have our own individual advice to give,” she said.

Frustrations had built in the hospitality industry, that health decisions were killing their businesses.

Of course these business owners are not epidemiologists.

But they had been left scratching their heads as to why with so few cases, restrictions continue to reduce the number of patrons that are allowed into their venues.

Privately they have been vocal in their criticism of Professor Spurrier and what they describe as the health bureaucrats making the decisions.

They have also wanted Mr Stevens, the man ultimately in charge, to put his foot down.

And they desperately wanted Mr Marshall to do more.

Members of SA’s Transition Committee: Professor Nicola Spurrier, Premier Steven Marshall, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens and Minister for Health and Wellbeing Stephen Wade.

One does not require a business degree to understand every customer lost during the summer and the Christmas period has a greater impact than one lost during the winter.

After doing the hard yards throughout the winter, these small businesses are desperate to get back to trading in full swing as soon as possible.

At first they had been diplomatic and measured, feeling the community mood was to keep the state safe.

But in the last two weeks those quiet whispers had turned to screaming it from the rooftops.

In a very unAdelaide show of force, dozens of hospitality heavyweights took to a popular alleyway for a media opportunity that will go down as one of the most defining images of the past 12 months.

Australian Hotels Association SA boss Ian Horne is regarded as one of the powerful and effective industry lobbyists in the state.

But his concerns appeared to have been falling on deaf ears.

Both Mr Horne, who represents mainly larger more traditional Adelaide pubs and his newer laneway friends, have been working frantically behind the scenes.

They have been lobbying all sides of politics including the Opposition and their local MPs.

Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas has been calling on tailored support.

Across the country no good has come for Opposition leaders that have been openly critical of their respective State Government’s handling over the coronavirus pandemic.

But there is no question that the business community have found a sympathetic ear with Mr Malinauskas.

So what does this all this mean for the Premier?

Put simply, not a lot.

Mr Marshall was not at this morning’s press conference as he was away on a trip organised weeks ago.

Business are annoyed with him, just as they were with land tax last year.

But in the passage of time it is possible to argue the last two weeks were just another bump in the road of what has been a rollercoaster year.

And he is still yet to depart too far from “expert health advice”.