Petition calls for CHO’s email release

The Chief Health Officer faces mounting calls to release the emails behind Queensland’s months-long border closure. VOTE IN OUR POLL

As Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk prepares to again pull the trigger on a hard border closure with NSW, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer is facing mounting calls to release the emails that underpinned Queensland’s months-long border closure to the state last year.

Jeannette Young is now the subject of a Right to Information request to release the health advice she provided Ms Palaszczuk, however Queensland Health officials said they could not access them due to a “corrupting” issue.

A change.org petition, which has just five signatures, has now been started calling for the Premier and Dr Young to release the correspondence which underpinned the border closure – declaring Queensland people have a right to know.

Gold Coast travel business owner Michael Chase-Smith is waiting for a result from his RTI request lodged in December asking Queensland Health to release Dr Young’s health advice.

In June Mr Chase-Smith received an email from the RTI officer declaring his request was “extremely time-consuming” and said there were “issues with accessing Dr Young’s emails as they keep corrupting”.

Queensland Health last week justified the delay, declaring its RTI team was processing a high volume of requests.

A spokeswoman on Wednesday said the department had nothing further to add.