Qld lockdown: Blame game as state takes aim at feds

The Queensland Government has blamed the Commonwealth for the state’s latest Covid-19 emergency while refusing to apologise for its own failures. VOTE IN OUR POLL

The Queensland Government has launched a multi-pronged attack on the Commonwealth, blaming it for the state’s latest Covid-19 emergency while refusing to apologise for its own failures in allowing the virus to escape one of its hospitals.

But federal minister Karen Andrews launched a scathing rebuke, accusing Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of creating a “smokescreen” campaign to distract from her own failure to inoculate a worker outside a Covid hospital ward.

The incredible tit-for-tat, which erupted just hours into the first day of lockdown for four million Queenslanders, came as former premier Peter Beattie called for an end to the political bickering around the vaccine rollout, saying people are “sick to death of the day to day politics and point scoring”.

The political fireworks came as Health Minister Yvette D’Ath refused to apologise for the latest Covid-19 breach, despite admitting there had been a failure to vaccinate the 19-year-old and Ms Palaszczuk promised a full investigation into how the oversight happened and that someone would be held responsible.

But Ms D’Ath also suggested the woman would have been offered the vaccine.

“It is not that she refused, it may have been that she simply did not take up the offer,” she told ABC Radio.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles slammed the Commonwealth for allowing thousands of international arrivals to enter Australia, claiming the travellers were displacing Australians who were genuinely stranded overseas.

He listed hundreds of Chinese, Indonesian, American, Philippines and South African visitors among the 20,000 arrivals last month – with half on short-term temporary visas.

And Mr Miles blamed the Federal Government for the recent scare at Brisbane’s The Prince Charles Hospital, after genomic sequencing found the 19-year-old employee had contracted the virus from a repeat traveller who was being treated there.

The traveller is a helicopter pilot who works in Indonesia and on his return spends two weeks in quarantine and two weeks at home before going back to the country for work.

But just hours later, Australian Border Force issued a detailed statement refuting Mr Miles’ claims.

The ABF said permanent residents and their immediate family members who are not Australians do travel into the country on foreign passports.

On average, 80 per cent of international arrivals coming into Australia are citizens, permanent residents, or their immediate family members.

The ABF also revealed 13,762 Australians and permanent residents had been allowed to come in and out of the country since the beginning of the pandemic, but said this includes people who have “legitimate reasons to undertake multiple trips”.

“Many of whom don’t take quarantine places from returning Australians,” a spokesman said.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath stopped short of apologising. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

This includes arrivals from New Zealand as part of the travel bubble, Defence personnel, medevac crew and medical or security escorts.

“In addition to hotel quarantine as a first line of defence, all travellers must present evidence of a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken 72 hours or less before the scheduled departure to Australia, unless travelling on a quarantine-free flight from New Zealand,” an ABF spokesman said.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said she believed the 19-year-old woman should have been vaccinated – describing it as semantics.

“They (Prince Charles) just didn’t think that the corridor outside their Covid area, that was totally removed from the rest of the hospital was a risk,” she said.

“Clearly, it is a risk.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said someone would be held responsible.

Asked whether Queenslanders deserved an apology, Ms D’Ath said authorities were trying to contain an “invisible, highly infections virus”.

“I believe that someone has failed here yes, and there will be an investigation because this person shouldn’t have been working where they were without a vaccination,” she said.

Meanwhile, former premier Peter Beattie slammed the rollout of the vaccine as “nothing short of an international disgrace”.

“We may as well benchmark ourselves against Disneyland,” he said.

“None of this would be happening now in terms of lockdowns if the vaccine had been rolled out, we had acquired enough vaccines.”

Mr Beattie said people wanted certainty in the vaccine rollout and for governments to work together.

He also said the Federal Government should have done more earlier to secure more vaccine supplies.

“But the point about it is, we’ve had a National Cabinet but we haven’t had a national strategy,” Mr Beattie said.

“We’ve had a whole lot of argy-bargy between the governments and politics. People are not interested (in that).

“They want Australians to be put first and they don’t want to see cheap politics and cheap point scoring.

“They’re interested in the wellbeing of Australia where people can get their health first and then they can actually do something about getting on with their lives.”

Mater Health Services director of infectious diseases Paul Griffin said it wasn’t about pointing fingers.

“I think we need to look at the bigger picture and work out how we get on the same page and move forward together,” he said.

“I think some of the discussions today have been less than helpful in terms of it’s so and so’s fault and a lot of those sort of things rather than actually working out how we can identify the issues, fix them together and move forward.”

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli accused the Government of a blame game that was “off the charts”, as he insisted that “mixed messaging” was not improving confidence.

He said someone must be held responsible for the current situation.

“I want to know how many times that she (Health Minister Yvette D’Ath) has asked whether or not staff working in those wards have been vaccinated,” Mr Crisafulli said.