Queensland wisely remains wary of effectiveness of current NSW public health response to Delta Variant Outbreak - border will remain closed for at least another 10 weeks

 

In which the NSW Berejiklian Government is unhappy to discover that the Qld Palaszczuk Government is on a drive to vaccinate its population against both the highly infectious Delta Variant of SARS-CoV-2 and Berejiklian's failed public health response which allowed COVID-19 infections to run wild in New South Wales......

ABC News, 24 August 2021:

Essential workers need to have had at least one jab to enter Queensland.
(ABC News: Cathy Border)

Queensland has confirmed that the hard border with New South Wales is likely to remain in place until at least the end of October, confirming the worst fears of businesses in the state's south.

Key points:

• Southern Gold Coast businesses are being warned they will have to take drastic measures to stay afloat over the next 10 weeks

• The NSW Cross Border Commissioner says Queensland's vaccination target and its relationship to the border closure hasn't been discussed with him

• The end of the lockdown in regional NSW will not mean Queensland's restrictions are lifted

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young hopes the restrictions will be in place for "no longer than 10 weeks", according to the health department……

NSW Cross-border Commissioner James McTavish said despite daily meetings with government officials, NSW had not been given any indication on when Queensland's border restrictions would end.

"We've not been advised of a 10-week timeframe for these border restrictions, or a 70 per cent vaccination requirement," he said.

"This is based on the timeframe in which we hope to have 70 per cent of Queenslanders fully vaccinated against COVID-19," a spokesperson said.

The Southern Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce has written to its members warning them that stop-gap measures will not be enough to see them through.

"The only way that businesses are going to be able to salvage that is to make arrangements to go into quarantine … or to arrange for their staff to go into quarantine," president Hilary Jacobs said.

At the moment the border pass only allows a limited category of essential workers to cross into Queensland and they must have proof of at least one COVID-19 vaccination.

Mr McTavish said Queensland's response to the border situation was "heavy handed" and called for the bubble to be brought back.

"We've represented very strongly to the Queensland government that we'd like to see a reinstated arrangement for border communities — not just for Tweed, but also further afield as well," he said…...

Queensland is set to expand the border zone into more areas of Northern New South Wales from 1 October 2020

ABC News, 22 September 2020:

Queensland is set to reopen its borders to parts of New South Wales after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the state's border bubble will soon include five additional local government areas.

From 1:00am on October 1, residents in Byron Bay, Ballina, Lismore, Richmond Valley and Glen Innes local government areas will be able to travel into Queensland.

It comes as the state recorded zero new coronavirus cases overnight, leaving just 16 active cases.

The extended border zone will include 41 New South Wales postcodes, spanning 11 local government areas.

Residents will have to apply for a border pass to travel into Queensland.

Queensland residents will also be able to travel to those areas from October 1.

"I think this is a great effort to consider how we can make our border zones more effective," Ms Palaszczuk said.

"These areas have a lot in common with Queensland, they do a lot of their business in Queensland so we believe this is the right measure to take."

CHO flags easing of further restrictions

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said there were 152,000 residents in the border zones who would now be able to travel into Queensland.

"These are people who might live in New South Wales, but many feel more of an affinity with Queensland," Mr Miles said.

He said the changes were possible because of the very low number of coronavirus cases in regional New South Wales…..

While I’m sure Scott Morrison will be quick to take full credit for this extension of the border bubble, I strongly suspect that NSW Labor MLA for Lismore Janelle Saffin (left) would have been working behind the scene to make this happen. 

Ms. Saffin has been the member for Lismore in the NSW Legislative Assembly since 23 March 2019, having previously been the federal MP for Page from 2007 to 2013 and a member of the NSW Legislative Council from 1995 to 2003.