Steven Wardill: Palaszczuk finally listens to the people

The Premier’s decision to relax restrictions comes after it became impractical and politically problematic for her to celebrate Queensland’s COVID success without doing so, writes Steven Wardill.

QUEENSLANDERS had spoken and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has, finally, listened.

The raft of restrictions that Ms Palaszczuk announced she’d ease make a whole lot of sense.

From Monday, Queensland’s five million residents will be able to travel when they want to where they want in their home state.

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And from Friday, pubs, clubs and restaurants, as well as other venues, will be able to increase their patrons from the current limit of 10 to 20 people per area.

Ms Palaszczuk’s announcement brings forward and significantly expands on restrictions that were supposed to start from June 12 as part of her COVID-19 roadmap.

The initial roadmap’s more prudent approach, which would have limited travellers to 250km trips and capped venues at 20 people, might have made sense when it was announced and Queensland had 45 active cases of coronavirus.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk making the announcement on Sunday. Picture: News Corp/Attila Csaszar

But with the number of active cases in Queensland down to just six, they were no longer logical.

Ms Palaszczuk has certainly taken some convincing to reach this decision.

Some might say she’s been downright obstinate.

But it became impractical and politically problematic for Ms Palaszczuk to celebrate Queensland’s success at radically stopping COVID in its tracks while not easing restrictions.

Criticism that the border remains closed will continue.

But allowing Queenslanders to return to doing many of the things that they love will relieve the pressure on Ms Palaszczuk over that issue.

It’ll mean we can take a break on the school holidays and have a meal out, which will be a boon for jobs in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Most important for the Premier, she can rightly argue she’s given the green light to good times because Queensland is safe.