Jessica Marszalek: Queensland government’s refusal to reveal Toowoomba Wellcamp facility proposal smacks of satire

The government’s secrecy on its Toowoomba quarantine proposal is supposedly due to commercial sensitivity, but is it actually because there’s no detail to give, asks Jessica Marszalek.

It really would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so serious.

The idea of a state government submitting a 15-page plan with no costings or details to build a regional quarantine hub sounds like something out of ABC satire Utopia.

But that’s apparently the extent of the proposal to build Toowoomba’s Wellcamp facility handed over to the Morrison Government months ago and the centre of a political, pointscoring furore ever since.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk won’t confirm the details submitted. Picture: David Clark

Although no one is 100 per cent sure.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk won’t confirm the content of that plan because “I’m not going to get into a slanging match”, or whether any details have subsequently been sewn up between state and federal bureaucrats.

And her office has objected to an RTI request for the information.

Instead, Palaszczuk has preferred to shake her head over such “ridiculous” claims and feign mock outrage as to why the Morrison Government won’t “sit down and be constructive” on this “no-brainer” plan.

As to why Queenslanders can’t know the details of this so-called, “no-brainer” plan? Well, it’s all “commercial in confidence”, you see.

This highly-sensitive business information includes many details some would consider basic information Queenslanders should have every right to.

John Wagner revealed a desire to build a COVID quarantine facility, at Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, with the help of governments. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/ The Australian

Like, who would run the facility? Would it be Queensland Health or the specialist federal AUSMAT team, who ran NT’s Howard Springs?

What is the capacity at Toowoomba Hospital and their ICU to treat COVID-positive patients and would any need to be transported to Brisbane hospitals?

Will Wellcamp have its own medical facility onsite, how many clinical staff would be there and would specialist medical equipment be required? How much will it cost?

Is this a serious proposal or one kept alive because it’s a good play to wedge the Commonwealth on?

The shame of it is that Palaszczuk’s right when she argues Australia needs a better system to bring back Australians from COVID-ravaged areas.

The fact we closed our borders to India, effectively shutting out our own citizens, was not only shameful but a public admission that the hotel system isn’t up to the task it was designed to do.

A man waves from hotel quarantine in Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

But Palaszczuk’s not right when she argues the Commonwealth must simply have no interest in working with the states on regional quarantine. The facts don’t back that up.

Because while Prime Minister Scott Morrison has responded to Queensland’s plan with incredulousness, he’s taking Victoria’s proposal to build one seriously.

Victoria‘s facility looks likely to be built by Linfox at Avalon if it does get the green light, near a major airport and major hospitals. A decision is expected within weeks.

The Andrews Government‘s first choice was to build at Mickleham, where a 3000-bed facility was estimated to cost $700m, but it’s thought an Avalon facility could be built within six months and come in cheaper.

“In contrast to others we have received, it is a very detailed and comprehensive proposal,” Morrison said of it.

But it’s not the first time we’ve had Palaszczuk Government plans announced with seemingly little detail worked out first.

Just this week, the announcement that it will pay people $1500 to move to regional Queensland to take a job under a new Work in Paradise scheme wobbled when Palaszczuk couldn’t answer questions about where those people might live.

It’s meant to help solve a major problem of worker shortages stretching to far north Queensland and west to the outback, where tourism is booming but there’s not enough staff to run the local pubs and cafes.

The Queensland Government’s Work in Paradise scheme seeks to address a shortage of skilled workers in tourist centres. Picture: Brendan Radke

Asked about burgeoning rental prices and a general lack of housing in exactly the places these workers are needed, Palaszczuk could only say that the government was talking to different organisations and “hopefully” that could be addressed.

One idea is to house them in the vacant backpacker accommodation that’s sitting boarded-up in places like Cairns.

But how many people are going to take $1500, (which won’t even cover the cost of removalists,) to move their lives to a backpackers?

Sure, probably some. But probably not enough.

So the government will likely end up paying people who were going to move anyway and probably not make much of a dent in the problem, at a cost of up to $7.5m.

As one Cairns leader told me this week as he complained the community hadn’t even been properly consulted before Palaszczuk flew up to announce the plan with her social media team, where’s the detail?

Seems there’s not a lot of that going around.

Jessica Marszalek is The Sunday-Mail’s State Political Editor