Opinion: The two reasons Qld won’t be opening up

Queensland’s Covid-19 elimination strategy serves no one except the Premier who is using it as a distraction, writes Kylie Lang.

Don’t get excited about Queensland opening up any time soon, because two snap decisions by the Premier this week indicate we are tied to an impractical Covid-19 elimination strategy.

First there was the knee-jerk reaction of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk digging into her bag of tricks and pulling out a two-week pause on relocations.

It was an astounding call for a politician who professes to act for all Queenslanders.

Any fool could see hotel quarantine was never going to cut it once Queenslanders started coming home in droves. The system was stuffed long before that.

This week South Australia joined countries around the world in permitting home quarantine for people who met the criteria, yet Ms Palaszczuk chose instead to punish people who’ve done everything by the book and deny them entry.

One Courier-Mail reader said his family had been “screwed” by Wednesday’s rash announcement, which was delivered in a 10am press conference to deliberately give people only two hours’ notice before the midday halting of relocations for travellers from NSW, Victoria and the ACT.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and deputy Steven Miles at Wellcamp

“We applied for a border permit two weeks ago and were approved,” he wrote at couriermail.com.au.

“Kids are now out of school here in Melbourne and due to start in Queensland on Monday. Our lease ends on Friday, our flights are booked for tomorrow, removalists have uplifted our household goods, our pets are currently on the road going into a kennel/cattery on arrival while we were to do our 14 days.

“Thanks Anna, from a homeless family in Melbourne because you did not keep track of how many people you had approved.

“We did everything right and just as you told us.

“Disgraceful.”

Another reader said the ban was “unbelievably cruel”.

“To turn around families who, in good faith, have packed up their lives interstate to return to Queensland defies belief. Perhaps a better alternative would have been to allow home quarantine where the situation warranted it.”

Spot on. Ms Palaszczuk justified the call by saying, “We do not have any room at the moment … Queensland is being loved to death.”

Well, for heaven’s sake, let stranded Queenslanders love their state too and quarantine in their own homes.

In launching home quarantine in South Australia, Premier Steven Marshall said it was implausible to continue to use hotels as borders began to open.

Under the new system, people need to download an app, which uses geo-location and facial recognition software. If they cannot verify their location when requested, police will be notified and sent to conduct a check.

Seems reasonable to me. And much cheaper and more pleasant than stuck in a hotel.

People in home quarantine must also be fully vaccinated.

As the Doherty Institute said this week, reopening the country despite high numbers of infections in NSW and Victoria will be safe when Australia reaches its vax target.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” the institute said.

“Once we achieve 70 to 80 per cent vaccination we will see less transmission of Covid-19 and fewer people with severe illness, and therefore fewer hospitalisations and deaths.

“Covid-19 won’t go away but it will be easier to control in the future.”

Does Ms Palaszczuk not understand this?

In her second staggering call – on the same day Qantas announced we could be flying overseas by Christmas, hooray! – she said work had begun on the Wellcamp quarantine hub outside Toowoomba.

Without bothering to inform Prime Minister Scott Morrison prior, she said the camp was a “no brainer”.

Well if Queensland was intent on going it alone, it could have started building the camp in January instead of playing petty party politics.

What the regional facility, which won’t be completed for months, and the relocation ban, which could be extended, both show is that Queensland will be locked up and riding the lockdown rollercoaster.

Instead of working towards that light at the end of the tunnel, we’ll be stuck with an elimination strategy serves no one, except perhaps the Premier who continues to use Covid-19 as a deflection from her Government’s many failings.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

LOVE

New laws which allow police to delete and disrupt illegal software in a single hit, stopping cyber-crims and domestic violence perpetrators using spyware to secretly monitor their ex-partners. Bring it on.

The NRL telling club doctors to educate rugby league players on the benefits of vaccination. A vaccination policy will be next, and fair enough too, with businesses set to embrace a “no shot, no shop” policy.

LOATHE

Teachers being subjected to rape threats, flashing and stalking from students. A study has found almost a third have felt unsafe because of gendered violence or sexual harassment, with 40 per cent of perpetrators children.

The UN reporting that the Taliban is carrying out widespread summary executions against civilians and Afghan security forces, and snatching girls as young as 12 from their families to use as sex slaves. Heartbreaking.