‘Explain yourselves’: Hunt slams border closures

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt says SA does not yet meet the definition of a national hot spot – and states were too quick to close their borders.

Four states jumped the gun in slamming their borders shut to South Australia, with the federal health Minister saying there is no medical justification for the closures.

Health Minister Greg Hunt urged other states to take a proportionate response to the SA cluster.

“Our message is very clear. There is a national hotspot definition. South Australia has not reached that,” he told reporters in Canberra.

The advice from the nation’s chief medical officer is that states should implement extra screening at airports and borders.

“There has been no advice that any state or territory should be closed to any state or territory,” Mr Hunt said.

“What we have seen here in the ACT, in Victoria, in New South Wales is exactly that; enhanced border screening, so they are looking for symptoms, they are looking for anybody who may have been in close contact, but they are allowing people to travel.

“Other states may choose to go further, but they’ll have to explain that.”

Hospitality, tourism and business sector bosses have also slammed the Tasmanian, Western Australian, Northern Territory and Queensland premiers’ calls to shut their borders to SA, describing it as “disappointing” and a “kneejerk” response.

It comes as South Australians were forced into quarantine in WA and Queensland, plucked off hiking trails in Tasmania, turned around on the Ghan train and forced to cancel flights.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said: “Border closures were a blunt weapon we needed at the beginning of the pandemic to keep people safe but we can’t keep closing them every time there is an outbreak, the virus doesn’t recognise borders and neither does the national economy.”  

Health Minister Greg Hunt. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Matray

NSW’s strategy of careful local containment was “a far better way forward than state wide lockdowns and border closures,” Ms Westacott told The Advertiser. 

The decisions should be based on the “strongest possible medical and scientific advice” because they would have “a massive impact on people’s lives and livelihoods,” she said.

Federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said authorities had to be willing to give testing, tracing and isolating systems a chance to work.

“The real damage from the reaction of some states is not only the immediate disruption to so many people but the enormous blow to the confidence any Australian will have to book travel across state borders,” he said.

“If you were one of the many thousands of Australians who works for an airline, airport, travel company or the like you would be understandably gutted at this turn of events.”  

Minister Birmingham said there was “every possibility” SA’s rapid response would see the cluster contained, as other outbreaks had been.

Restaurant and Catering national boss Wes Lambert told The Advertiser: “We are disappointed that so many states immediately closed off to SA.”

“We are in a pandemic, there are going to be clusters of infections, this is normal,” he said

“We do not appreciate the premiers’ kneejerk (response) and cancelled flights, hotel rooms, wedding plans, event plans, families reuniting and all of the things that happen when you slam shut borders on small clusters.”

Mr Lambert said if the country was to have a COVID-normal 2021 premiers could not have kneejerk responses to every new cluster.

“We have to trust that the premiers in every state have developed their tracking and tracing capabilities as well as their ICU and hospital capabilities so that borders can stay open and commerce and people can continue to move,” he said.

Mr Lambert said SA’s new restrictions were “measured”.

“We do expect to get things back to normal within a couple of weeks.”

Australian Tourism Industry Council boss Simon Westaway criticised the lack of consistency as states imposed different levels of restrictions, and said the border closures were “disappointing”.

“We need to come up with a better way. We just can’t continue to have these very snap decisions to change border arrangements after they have been open, unless of course there is a really major situation on our hands,” he said.

He said the snap decisions would crush consumer confidence, particularly at a peak travel booking time.

The number of coronavirus cases in the Parafield cluster has risen to 22.

Premier Steven Marshall said: “I am hoping that within the coming days we will get on top of this cluster and we will be able to see an easing of those border restrictions.”

“We understand these border restrictions are causing havoc with people that are stranded interstate and we have sympathy for those people,” he told The Advertiser.

“But ultimately those other states and territories make their own decisions in regards to their borders just like we have made decisions in regard to our own state borders.”

State COVID co-ordinator, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, said there had been no discussions among the country’s top cops about heavy handed policing at borders.

“What other jurisdictions do in relation to directions or restrictions within their own jurisdictions is entirely up to them,” he said.

“We have no capacity to really influence that. We have a consistent and measured response in South Australia and we’ll continue to do that.”