Steven, this is why you don’t toss the keys to the bureaucracy

In April, the South Australian Parliament passed the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020, an Act designed to “make various temporary modifications of the law of the State in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and for other purposes”.

The Act modified a range of legislative instruments from the Emergency Management Act 2004 to the South Australian Public Health Act 2011 for the purposes of making swift decisions during the COVID-19 outbreak.  

Until you understand the deeper consequences of what has been relinquished, it may not seem particularly troublesome to throw the keys to an emergency management team in the middle of a pandemic.  

As a result of the Act, the bureaucracy in South Australia has