CORONAVIRUS — STATE OF EMERGENCY
509. Ms M.J. DAVIES to the Premier:
I
refer to comments attributed to the Premier in media reports that he is looking
at what can be done to have a different regime to manage the pandemic.
Will the Premier please explain what he means by this statement? Is it
standalone legislation or will he use the Public Health Act 2016, which the
opposition has called for, to transition WA from a state of emergency?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
I thank the Leader of the
Opposition for the question.
As members know, over the course of
the last two and a half years, the government has had in place state of
emergency legislation to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. That legislation has
allowed for a whole range of measures to be put in place and, in particular, it
has provided the State Emergency Coordinator with the authority for a range of
measures. They could use that authority, and the authority of the State
Emergency Management Committee, to put in place directions that have allowed
for certain measures across the community to control the spread of the virus.
That mechanism has been available to us over this period of time. The pandemic
is now in a different phase. Although we continue to have community spread of
the pandemic—we have had so for the last four or five months—we
have, perhaps, the highest vaccination levels in the world so we have much more
modest measures in place. We have had to use a legislative tool to do that and
we have used the existing legislation. We are looking at drafting new
legislation that provides for perhaps a step down from the state of emergency
that will still allow for compulsory mask wearing in hospitals, rules around
remote Aboriginal communities if necessary, mask wearing and vaccination
requirements in healthcare and aged-care settings and those sorts of
initiatives using another legislative instrument that will be more specifically
used for the COVID-19 pandemic. I make the point that the existing measures in
place are quite modest and mild; it is just that we have to have a legislative
instrument to have them so we are looking at what other legislative instrument
can address this issue. If we can bring it in and have it drafted, then we
will. If we cannot, we will look at what other measures are available