Commenting on the story: SA borders to reopen, some restricitions to ease from November 23

I have some questions relating to double vaccinated people.

After November 23, what happens if you catch Covid whilst holidaying interstate? Do we quarantine there or are we allowed to return to SA to quarantine?

What happens if we are interstate when a Covid breakout occurs in the region in which we are staying, but we don’t fall ill? Can we return to SA? Under what conditions?

What happens if we have booked an interstate holiday, and a Covid outbreak occurs in SA, and we have had exposure to the infected person(s) or live in the affected LGA? Will the State/Territory that we plan to visit let us in? Under what conditions? – Alison Vink

Commenting on the story: ‘Shock, sadness’: Flinders restructure plan prompts fierce backlash

I hope this shocking move proposed by the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders will not be pursued.

Professor Baum and her colleagues are high performing intellectuals and researchers, making an important contribution to improving health outcomes for all South Australians, and particularly those who suffer the highest burdens of illness and marginalisation in our society.

I cannot think of a precedent for booting out such a successful and significant group from an Australian University. – Adjunct Professor Judith Dwyer

I find Flinders University’s decision absolutely unfathomable and seriously short sighted.

Why do you want to lose your best performer? Professor Baum and her Southgate team are extraordinary. Their research contributions has shaped so much of the SA Health (now Wellbeing SA) social determinants of health policy work.

What a sad loss. I hope the Southgate team find a new home in SA and continue to work for those South Australians who don’t have a powerful voice. – Heather Petty

I was involved with public health postgraduate studies in partnership with the Menzies School of Health Research, Royal Darwin Hospital and Charles Darwin University.

The name Fran Baum is globally significant in the world of public health and in fact her text, The New Public Health, is now in its 4th edition and is a standard text.

To see Flinders University make such a big mistake, even just thinking about it, is absolutely mind boggling. Where Fran and co move on to with their research dollars will be something to watch, and the institute that will become associated with their research will reap the rewards and accolades of their future work.

Her award of an AO in 2016 was in acknowledgment of her distinguished service in higher education and public health. – Stephen Barnett

Commenting on the story: Labor’s technical colleges election pledge

Considering it was Labor who closed down the technical colleges under Don Dunstan in the mid-70s, I will be a little cautious in accepting Labor’s new policy for them. Is Mr Malinauskas going to now say that the closures by Dunstan was a mistake? – Fred Driver

I agree with Minister Gardner’s response that the South Australian people deserve honesty. Perhaps he could start by acknowledging that the failure in vocational training is a Liberal legacy.

In the last years of the second Dunstan Government, funding was provided to develop curriculum for a very similar initiative. Its aim was to acknowledge that not all students were headed for university. The Tonkin Government stopped that initiative.

When immigration policy shifted to importing skills rather than training locally we found successive generations of young Australians locked out of the employment market. The evidence, both here and overseas, is that initiatives that encourage employers to work with schools enjoy strong employment outcomes and help to build a resilient society.

It is time that we applied a circuit breaker to persistent youth unemployment. Labor’s policy provides such a circuit breaker. – John Tons