In news that will be welcomed by grey nomads eager to head north, the Queensland Government has given its strongest hint yet that border restrictions could be eased at the end of this month.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has said the latest coronavirus figures coming out of New South Wales are ‘very encouraging’, and says she will consider easing border restrictions as the state enters stage three of the roadmap to recovery.
“I have made it absolutely clear that we will be looking at that at the end of the month as we enter stage three,” she said. “We are seeing a fantastic health response here in Queensland. We are in stage two. In stage two, it does not talk about interstate travel.”
Ms Palaszczuk told the Courier-Mail that she understood the National Cabinet would look at the latest coronavirus results following the mass rallies over the weekend when it meets at the end of the week.
“Of course, where we can ease further restrictions, we will do so,” she said. “I think the end of the month gives us a really good signal, a really good point in time, about how much further we can ease restrictions … I understand that businesses are doing it tough. We know our tourism operators are doing it tough.”
The Northern Territory, which will begin reviewing border closures weekly from June 15, has said it will watch the medical outcome of large protests interstate with interest before making any big decisions.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner insists the Territory will not open its borders until southern states have coronavirus under control but has said that, if there was no community transmission as a result of Black Lives Matter protests interstate, it would give the Territory Government more confidence to set a date.
“We obviously saw large gatherings of people down south over the weekend,” he said on ABC Radio. “It’ll take about 10 days … to see if that leads to any community transmission or spread or not, so we’ll know very soon if it’s contained essentially down south and with confidence you can make a border decision.”
In Western Australia, the McGowan Government has refused to give a date for allowing interstate tourists back, despite a Tourism Council survey indicating that more than 30% of WA tourism businesses will go under unless the hard border with the eastern states is lifted.
Tourism Minister Paul Papalia has repeated that the current advice of the state’s chief health officer is to keep the border closed until there is no community spread in other states.
Keep Qld borders closed til after school holidays at least
Mazza, so what after the school holidays, do we then wait until after term 3 of school, then wait until after the next school holidays just in case. Get the borders open and everyone stick to social distancing. I am so over these reports continually coming out saying that there were 4 new cases of Covid 19 reported today and 3 yesterday. Is it only me or does this tell us absolutely nothing, how many of those reported are requiring medical intervention, do we shut down the country if someone is found to have tested positive to TB. If people are contracting Covid 19 and are being forced to quarantine then I do not see any reason to keep the place closed any longer, if we then have a glut of people contracting Covid 19 being hospitalised then look at what needs to be done. Come on people get out there and start to live again before we all end up under ground for other reasons other than old age.
Too right.
More people die from smoking everyday in Australia than what covid did in 3 months.
Open the borders everywhere. No point being shut now.
The state that didn’t close borders have had more die then the ones that did close. Its all about me and my needs is the way some selfish people think. Some well never feel the warm sun on there faces or the freedom to travel they are dead.
I’m more interested in the NT border, Qld is too cold to spend winter in. Darwin would be preferable.
Have you been to North/Far North Queensland in winter? (And I don’t mean the Sunshine Coast!) With an average daily temperature of 17(min) to 26 (max) in the coldest time of the year, I don’t think many people would be complaining about that as too cold for winter!
That’s not much warmer than where we live which is over 200ks north of the sunshine coast
if opening the borders, at least check everyone coming in for temperature and ask question, don’t just open and let things run. that is stupid.
Janette Young, our chief health officer has access to more information about whats going on than she will ever be able to release publicly…due to privacy and other concerns, so shut up and trust her…she has done one of the best jobs in the word at keeping us safe. Covid is NOTHING like TB, very different, so that’s just a silly comment about TB. Stop making the decisions any harder and complicated than they need to be, rest assured they will open the borders when its right to do so. Large areas of folk in Northern NSW have not been extensively tested for COVID, some large communities oppose immunization and testing, and so just settle down and let it play out. Keep the borders closed until all advice, intel, and real information indicates that its safe. For now, keep Queensland for Queenslanders for a little while and yes, Queensland is freezing in winter so don’t come here, stay away, we will just have to “suffer” the “freezing” temperatures here by ourselves…I just love Queensland’s freezing climate. 🙂
Stay safe, social distance, wash hands, and trust the medical experts (or go to America where the politicians make all the decisions and see where that has got them)
OBB, really, these are the same health experts that can’t agree on one standard to follow, just a bit of information, these supposed health experts are employed by who, ooh that’s right the governments they work for. This is the reason why our health officer in Victoria has a different spin on things compared to the federal health officer, because here in Victoria and dare i say QLD are employed by the state labour governments and they want to show all and sundry how much power they can now wield. Get with it OBB this is a display of power between all our state premiers, nothing to do with public safety, just look at all the contradictory advice from them all.
Very good advise, beaurocratic on steroids
If you are so bitter about the way thing are being handled here. Then move to a county that has just let its people die. Why are you living in Australia. People are sick of knockers that are selfish and self opinionated.