Minogue avoids Queensland hotel quarantine, as Premier declares NSW hot spots

The NSW local government areas of Liverpool and Campbelltown will be declared COVID-19 hot spots from midday on Tuesday, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says.

This means anyone who has visited or come from these areas in the past two weeks will be refused entry into Queensland.

Medical staff at a pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic in Casula in NSW, where the local Crossroads Hotel is now a hot spot.Credit: David Gray - Getty

However, if the person in question is a Queensland resident, they will be allowed back into their home state but must go into two weeks' quarantine.

Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles, the state Deputy Premier, said the two areas were hot spots owing to 21 NSW cases being linked to the Crossroads Hotel, in the Liverpool local government area.

Meanwhile, Mr Miles confirmed Australian singer and television personality Dannii Minogue received a state government exemption and avoided hotel quarantine upon returning to Queensland from the US.

Speaking on ABC Radio Brisbane on Tuesday, Mr Miles said Ms Minogue was instead allowed to quarantine for two weeks in her own home.

Singer Dannii Minogue is allowed to quarantine in her own home, unlike most people returning to the Sunshine State.Credit: NETWORK SEVEN

"Anyone can apply for those exemptions and the Chief Health Officer [Dr Jeannette Young] considers all of the advice put to her from other medical professionals," Mr Miles said.

"In this case, I understand that the person in question is in quarantine and all of the quarantine conditions will be enforced on her.

"She has come from a high-risk location and so, like anyone arriving back from the United States, we need her to comply with those quarantine conditions.

"I understand she is quarantining at home under conditions put to her by Queensland Health."

Staying in her private residence, reportedly at the Gold Coast, means Ms Minogue will be spared having to pay $2800 in hotel quarantine costs enforced on others crossing the border.

Mr Miles said he understood why there was public outcry regarding the decision involving Ms Minogue, but he said she was paying for her own private quarantine.

"As I understand from the advice that Dr Young has provided to me, the quarantine arrangements in place in this instance mirror, if not [are] greater, than the arrangements in the hotel quarantine," he said.

"They incorporate contract security [to make sure she maintains quarantine] as well as testing, so those requirements will ensure that Queenslanders are kept safe and they are being administered by a trusted third party, all at her own expense."

Dr Young said she provided exemptions from quarantine if she was confident the system they had in place protected the broader Queensland public.

"I provide exemptions because I’m confident the process they have in place will adequately protect the Queensland community if any of the people who are in quarantine were to be positive," she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said there were no new COVID-19 cases recorded in Queensland on Tuesday and there remained four active cases statewide. More than 425,000 people have been tested in the state.

However, Ms Palaszczuk said the main enemy of the state regarding the pandemic was "COVID complacency", with such a low number of active cases in Queensland.

The Australian Medical Association Queensland warned closing the Queensland borders and nightclubs for a second time is "not completely out of the question".

Addressing the inquiry into the state government’s COVID-19 health response on Monday, AMAQ president Dr Chris Perry said another mass closure could happen "in the next week or next month".

"We have to watch social distancing in nightclubs and restaurants [and] waiting outside the nightclubs, that might need to be policed a little bit more," Dr Perry told the inquiry.

"We will watch what happens in Victoria and it’s not completely out of the question that our borders may need to close again in the next week or next month and the nightclubs may need to close down."

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