Police hand out $100K in Covid-19 fines to Queenslanders ignoring public health directions

Queensland police have handed out close to $100,000 in fines in a 24-hour period as people continue to Covid-19 public health directions, but a senior officer admits some of those have been issued in error.

POLICE handed out close to $100,000 in fines in 24 hours to people ignoring COVID-19 public health directions.

Statistics released this morning by Queensland Police Service show some Queenslanders are still breaking the rules, with 73 fines handed out in the past day (until 12.01am April 14), bringing the total since March 27 to 827.

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Police can issue on-the-spot fines of $1334 for an individual or $6672 for a corporation.

Officers in the same 24 hours conducted 39 checks on people in quarantine and 27 compliance checks on non-essential businesses.

Officers manning state borders intercepted more than 2500 cars, bringing the total of vehicle checks since March 27 to 80,263.

A total of 234 passengers arrived into Queensland on domestic flights, with nine directed into quarantine.

Police this week announced they were setting up a system to review fines after some officers mistakenly fined people for taking rubbish to the tip.

“What you’ve got to remember is how rapidly this system’s come in and how rapidly things have changed and how we’ve seen continual changes to the directions (as) things got more restrictive,” Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said.

“(People have) had to adjust – and we’ve had to adjust as well.

“And some of it is messaging. This is one of those instances where every person in the Queensland community is impacted.”