Editorial: Dannii Minogue’s COVID-19 exemption undermines rules
Queensland Health has clarified why pop star Dannii Minogue appeared to be given a “free pass” when entering Australia. But there is clearly something amiss with this system.
Opinion
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IT DOESN’T take much to undermine the array of important health messages that are currently protecting Queenslanders from the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Any contradictions around how these rules are applied by authorities makes people question whether those vital rules should apply to them.
COVID quarantine: Dannii double standard shines light on decision makers
Dannii Minogue avoids hotel coronavirus quarantine to stay in private Gold Coast home
And when that happens, the risk of coronavirus spreading increases exponentially and lives will be put in jeopardy.
Unfortunately, that appears to be the case in the now much-publicised case of songstress and reality television host, Dannii Minogue.
Minogue flew in to the Gold Coast on the weekend from the US, which has emerged as one of the world’s worst hot spots for coronavirus with an estimated 137,000 deaths.
However rather than being forced to quarantine in a designated hotel room under guard for a fortnight – and foot the required $2800 bill – like other returning travellers, Minogue was allowed to isolate on a private property, presumably with all the creature comforts that affords her.
Queensland’s highly respected Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young yesterday sought to clarify what would appear to be a gross double standard being applied on behalf of a celebrity.
Dr Young explained that the film and television sector was one of the industries which had obtained a COVID-safe plan so their employees could quarantine elsewhere other than a hotel.
The same exemptions have been approved for consular officials, defence personnel and oil and gas workers, Dr Young said – adding that 38 other people along with Minogue had also been allowed to quarantine in this way.
“The default arrangement in Queensland is if you don’t have a COVID-safe plan or an industry plan or an exemption to hotel quarantine, then you go into hotel quarantine,” Dr Young said.
But clearly there is something amiss about such a system.
For a start, affording celebrities the same conveniences as defence force personnel and diplomats seems wrong.
Further, there would be plenty of people returning from an international trip whose industries don’t have a COVID-safe plan who could rightly argue their work is more important than Minogue’s – who has reportedly returned to Australia to film her role as a judge on Channel 10’s The Masked Singer.
Quarantining people in hotels and requiring them to pay is the right course of action.
It became clear at the outset of this pandemic that simply telling people who returned from overseas to stay at home wasn’t going to work.
Given the number of cases in returning overseas travellers, this measure has been the single-most important step taken by authorities to prevent the spread of coronavirus in this country.
It is also right that the system has a level of flexibility, particularly when it comes to defence personnel who put themselves in harm’s way overseas.
But to allow Minogue and other celebrities to skip hotel quarantine and have their isolation monitored by a third party smacks of a sop to the famous.
It encourages people to see it and think, well if that‘s OK for Minogue then why is it not OK for me?
Just like green-lighting a 30,000-strong protest while businesses were still under serious restrictions, it undermines the other messages governments are trying to convey to people in order to keep them safe.
Misleading by degrees
EDUCATION Minister Grace Grace has been clearly caught out gilding the lily about her tertiary qualifications.
She should apologise to all those people who have actually done the hard yards to complete master’s degrees and graduate diplomas and immediately amend her publicly available biography.
Ms Grace argues the Harvard Trade Union Program course she completed 27 years ago was twice as long and far more intensive than the one currently run by the famed US institution. She also claims participants in the program at the time were told the work they undertook was comparable to these high level tertiary degrees.
This all might seem like a storm in a tea cup.
However, regardless of whether it was by design or by accident, Ms Grace’s biography would lead a casual observer to believe she has a qualification she doesn’t have.
For the state’s Education Minister, this is unacceptable. It should be corrected.