Annastacia Palaszczuk suggests regional quarantine option for Australians leaving India

Annastacia Palaszczuk says Scott Morrison should be looking harder for answers to get Australians home from COVID-ravaged India, as federal crossbenchers, including Bob Katter, demand a ‘fair go’ for stranded Aussies.

Australians might be returned from India and quarantined at Christmas Island, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has suggested.

Asked about the Federal Government’s threats to jail returning travellers leaving the COVID-19 hotspot, Ms Palaszczuk said international borders were the responsibility of the Australian Government.

And she said Prime Minister Scott Morrison should be looking harder for answers.

“What I do think should be happening is if we did have regional quarantine facilities, and if you looked at opening up areas like Christmas Island, like (WA Premier) Mark McGowan has said, there is good avenues for people to return back to Australia,” she said.

People line up to get the COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine outside Moti Lal Nehru Medical College in Allahabad on May 3, 2021. (Photo by Sanjay KANOJIA / AFP)

“But, once again, these are issues for the Federal Government. The federal Cabinet needs to sit around their Cabinet table and work this out.”

Ms Palaszczuk’s comments followed her writing to the Prime Minister ahead of the ban asking for flights from India to be suspended.

“We have to do everything we can to protect Queenslanders and protect Australians. I understand that the Commonwealth is meeting to discuss this issue,” she said at the time.

“Other countries have done a temporary suspension. I don’t think it would be out of kilter for Queensland and Australia to also do the same.

“We are due to have some direct flights coming in the next couple of weeks. Our health authorities are on high alert, we’re very worried about the number of people who could be infectious on those flights.”

The Federal Government has been criticised for not allowing Australians in India to travel home as that country wrestles with a major COVID-19 catastrophe.

The Prime Minister today took another swipe at Queensland’s Toowoomba quarantine camp proposal as he praised Victoria’s “very detailed and comprehensive” pitch for a similar facility.

In his first comments since the Victorian government proposed its 3000-bed quarantine camp last week, Mr Morrison said he would look at it “in good faith”.

“I welcome the proposal,” Mr Morrison said.

But in a veiled swipe to the Queensland government, who has been pushing for a 1000-bed facility next to Wellcamp Airport in Toowoomba, Mr Morrison said the Victorian pitch was “very detailed and comprehensive”, in contrast to “others we have received”.

Referring to the Victorian proposal, Mr Morrison said; “a lot of effort has gone into it and we will look at it seriously”.

The federal government has said it required more information from the Queensland government about the Toowoomba quarantine camp proposal.

Meanwhile, crossbench federal parliamentarians including Queensland’s Bob Katter have demanded the Prime Minister revoke the threat of significant fines and jail time for Australians returning from India.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, six crossbench MPs and two senators said the punitive measures, where Australians who return home from India during the travel ban face up to five years in jail or a $66,000 fine, had set a “dangerous precedent” of barring citizens from their right to come home.

Mr Morrison spent Tuesday defending the government’s tough restrictions, saying criticism was overblown.

The laws are the first in Australia’s history preventing citizens from returning home, but Mr Morrison claimed similar measures had been in force under the Biosecurity Act for more than a year and had been used “responsibly and proportionately”.

From Monday, people who have been in India within the previous fortnight before their intended arrival in Australia will face a $66,600 fine as well as five years imprisonment for entering the country under emergency powers in the Biosecurity Act.

The crossbenchers have called on the Prime Minister to revoke the restrictions and “urgently repatriate Australians currently in India.

“We all like to sing the song by Peter Allen, ‘I still call Australia home’ but that doesn’t apply to Australians in India? Fair bloody go,” Mr Katter said.

“Australians should be welcomed home from any part of the world as long as they quarantine and go through appropriate testing.

Federal crossbenchers, including Bob Katter, have called for the capacity of the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs quarantine facility to expand even further. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“That is why I have signed a letter with my fellow crossbenchers calling for the Federal Government to reverse its decision.”

The crossbenchers also called on the government to “urgently expand” the Howard Springs quarantine facility in Darwin to its “maximum capacity”.

Howard Springs, a worker’s camp built for 3000 people, is already being expanded to handle 2000 repatriated Australians per fortnight by the end of May, up from the current capacity of 850.

The major challenge of increasing capacity at the facility is manpower, with the NT government requiring 400 extra hands on deck to handle the growth.