Warwick businesses, community react to looming unvaxxed mandate

Uncertainty abounds as the deadline is fast approaching for the restrictions that will impact hospitality, education, and the wider community. HAVE YOUR SAY IN OUR POLL HERE:

The Warwick community remains apprehensive as the weeks tick down to the start of the government’s tight restrictions for unvaccinated residents.

The Queensland Government has stood firm on its plans to ban the unvaccinated from restaurants, pubs, and other leisure venues such as cinemas and stadiums from December 17.

With the mandate already applying to employees at all included venues and facilities, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk doubled down on the mandate on Tuesday morning by extending it to staff at schools, childcare centres, and correctional centres.

It was also revealed the state’s borders could reopen ahead of schedule on December 10, as Queensland is on track to hit the 80 per cent fully vaccinated milestone a week early.

The ongoing uncertainty has left Condamine Sports Club manager Stephen Domjahn concerned his customer and staff numbers are likely to take a hit once the strict mandate takes effect.

“There‘s probably about 10 staff who aren’t double-vaccinated, so they won’t be able to work here until such time as the mandate is lifted and I’ve talked to them about where I’m coming from,” he said.

“If things do start going down, it’ll just be about saving wages. They’re the little things we’ll have to watch out for – you don’t want 10 staff here while you’re only doing 10 meals.

Condamine Sports Club manager Stephen Domjahn

“That’ll be the trying time. One day you’re normally busy and the next day you’ll be slow, because that 10 or 20 per cent around town aren’t coming in or they aren’t allowed to come in.”

With 91 per cent of Southern Downs residents now having received at one dose of a Covid vaccine, Mr Domjahn said he was hopeful the restrictions would ease within a few months.

“I hope this is just a one- or two-month thing until we get to 90 per cent (in Queensland), and we can then let it go back to normal,” he said.

“I don’t want to upset customers as much as anyone else, so we try to make it easier for them, which in turn makes it easier for us.

“As a community club, we just have to follow the government rules and regulations. Everyone’s going through it, we just need to bite our tongues for the next couple of months and we should hopefully come through it.”

He said the added burden came only a month after Warwick’s Covid scare decimated their average lunch meal totals from 80 to 100, to about 20.

It was a similar struggle for Warwick RSL manager Michael Jones, who told the Daily News earlier this month that it was “only going to get worse” from December 17 for the club still building business back up following the Covid contact.

Southern Downs residents are still awaiting a response to Mayor Vic Pennisi’s letter to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, which urged the state leader to reconsider the mandate.

“Many local governments are currently severely impacted with skill shortages and areas of concern that if restriction proceed as proposed, those LGAs such as ours will be detrimentally affected,” he said.

“As the number of fully vaccinated residents increases, is there a need for the planned level of mandates? Is there a risk that we are creating a divide within our communities based on vaccinations?”

Only two councillors opposed the sentiment despite the region’s soaring vaccination rate, and the correspondence appeared to leave the Southern Downs community just as divided.

Residents such as Ray Black spoke out in favour of the vaccine mandate, citing similar policies in other states.

“New South Wales are at 95 per cent double-vaccinated and only talking about easing restrictions for the unvaccinated now, so don’t come up with ‘this is only Queensland’ with these rules,” he wrote.

“The message is ‘get vaccinated’ if your doctor approves – if not, carry a certificate saying you are at risk if vaccinated. Those who refuse it for no reason but pigheadedness should not be allowed in the community,” Rodney Kelley agreed.

Kathy Smith-Kieseker vouched for the Mayor’s position, branding the new rules “insanity”.

“Thank you for speaking up about the divisiveness of this mandate on our community. It will only cause further angst for businesses to have to police their potential customers and then decline to allow them into their business,” she said.

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