Townsville hospitality and entertainment businesses will no longer have to adhere to strict capacity restrictions
Major changes will be rolled out for Queensland hospitality businesses on December 17, but Townsville industry leaders are still calling for more clarification.
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MAJOR changes will be rolled out for Queensland hospitality businesses on December 17, but Townsville industry leaders are still calling for more clarification.
The state government has announced hospitality and entertainment venues will no longer be subjected to capacity restrictions when the vaccine mandate comes into effect.
However, Townsville Chamber of Commerce CEO Ross McLennan said this was something it had been campaigning for.
“Businesses should not be the police and there has to be the emphasis on the individual that are entering businesses and having that individual responsibility,” Mr McLennan said.
“We’re very pleased that the directive that came out of the state government yesterday (Wednesday) emphasising the responsibility is on the individual and not on the business.”
Mr McLennan said the government’s decision to offer training was good, but to train staff, businesses needed to know the criteria.
“It is good news that they have created training, and it will help businesses comply,” he said.
“When they create uncertainty, that is the big issue.”
Small Business and Employment Minister Di Farmer said the government did not expect business owners or staff to be the police.
“If there are customers refusing to comply with the rules, then the police will step in,” the Minister said.
“These businesses are hardworking families – many have young employees – and they have experienced a really tough 18 months or more.
“When you are visiting these places, please respect the staff and the rules that they have in place.”
Mad Cow owner Mark Napier said he hoped patrons would understand businesses were just following the law.
“All hospitality businesses that are under the current restrictions now are looking forward to having those restrictions lifted,” he said.
“However, it does come with the clause of having to police entry to potential patrons who are forthcoming with their money.
“I hope we don’t have any argumentative patrons … hopefully everyone can understand we’re just trying to enforce the government’s law.”
Mr Napier said other states, where vaccines had been mandated, were experiencing some issues with patrons.
He said if the government was to continue mandating the vaccine, it should happen across every industry.
“That way if everyone is doing it, everyone will know,” Mr Napier said.
Currently, Townsville’s double vaccination rate sits at 74.2 per cent, while 85.2 per cent of the population has one dose.
Aitkenvale Family Health Centre Practice Manager Raewyn Whitehead said since the announcement that Queensland’s borders would open on December 17, more people had come through to get vaccinated.
She said the threat of not being able to go to hospitality venues had spurred a lot of people to get vaccinated.
“It’s a shame that it took that strict guideline before people actually did it,” Ms Whitehead said.
She added that more people were also coming in to get their booster shot.
Explained: Doc decodes new Covid variant
TIME will help answer health professionals questions about the new Omicron strain of Covid-19.
The new strain of the virus, which was first detected in Australia on Sunday, is the latest in a string of new versions of Covid-19.
But doctors are still trying to work out how different the virus will be from the deadly Delta variant.
Townsville GP Dr Michael Clements said the good thing was, so far, there had been no deaths attributed to the strain.
”(Omicron) has got a lot of genetic mutations from the original Wuhan virus, but we don’t know if it is going to spread more easily and we don’t know if it is more deadly,” he said.
“At the moment, there is nothing point to it being more dangerous.”
However, the country’s leaders will have until December 15 to properly understand what the virus will be when the border is now set to open to fully vaccinated international travellers with education or work visas.
“We’re waiting to see whether it is more deadly … than the other variants, we’re also waiting to see if our vaccines that we’ve been using provide some protection, then those two things will help guide the response,” Dr Clements said.
“Those thing will guide us towards whether we’re going back into international border closures or whether we can continue to (open back up).”
Dr Clements said the two week mark was often used because it matched up with the standard quarantine time frame.
“It is a safe estimate … to understand how dangerous it might be,” he said.
Dr Clements said there was a small possibility that this variant would be safer than others.
“It may well be that this variant, while easy to spread, may not cause anywhere near the harm,” he said. “That is what has occurred in previous outbreaks.”
The World Health Organisation is has designated five variants of concern, two variants of interest, and an additional seven other variants in which it is monitoring.
Currently, Omicron is listed as a variant of concern on the WHO website.
Dr Clements said every time a virus replicates in the human body, there was a chance there was going to be a small mutation.
“If the mutation is a really good one and it seems to make the virus spread easier or live longer, then it is more likely to stay and spread,” he said.
“We’ve absolutely seen lots of genetic mutations and variations every since the first cases, this is what we expect.
“The good news is, the vaccines we are using seems to be covering all the ones we know about, it’s providing some protection for all of them because it targets the whole protein.
“I think the doctors at the moment are watching to see what this mean, but at the moment there is no cause for alarm.”
Dr Clements encouraged everyone to continue to get vaccinated and adhere to the restrictions in the mean time.
Jenny backs Lambie: Leaders should protect vulnerable
MAYOR Jenny Hill has backed the state government’s hard line vaccination mandate despite saying Townsville City Council would not impose their own in a bid to avoid legal trouble.
Cr Hill (pictured) has also declared support for Senator Jacqui Lambie who gave a fierce speech in the Senate on Monday calling out people who confuse consequences with discrimination, with the mayor saying it was what true leadership looked like.
However, Cr Hill said the council was seeking clarification on a number of the state government’s directives that could impact on the council’s facilities.
While government road maps say all state-run libraries and museums will require double vaccination for entry, Cr Hill said there was the potential this could impact on local venues.
She said the state government provide significant funding for Townsville City Council libraries, so it was important to clarify if the buildings would be restricted.
If the council buildings were exempt from the rule, the organisation was not likely to impose its own rules.
“This is a public health directive,” Cr Hill said. “One hundred years ago millions and millions of people died of the flu.
“In the past millions of people died from smallpox and polio. With the development of vaccinations, these diseases were either well under control, eradicated, or something from the dim dark past.
“A lot of this in the past was partially public health directives. That gives us protection of the law on what we can and can’t do.
“I’m not going to encourage council to do anything that could be unlawful, that will put us in front of the courts.
“It’s got to be a whole of state, or whole of country directive.
“You can’t be doing something locally … it’s never going to stand up.”
Cr Hill said like Senator Lambie, community leaders needed to put the needs of the community before their own.
She said the Queensland government’s Covid-19 plans had been prudent and protected the community and now leaders needed protect the most vulnerable.
“Jacqui Lambie showed what real leadership should be like at a federal level,” Cr Hill said.
On Monday, Ms Lambie delivered a passionate speech, saying people had the right to choose, but those choices came with consequences.
“You don’t have a right to put vulnerable people’s lives at risk,” the senator said.
“You don’t have that right – and you shouldn’t have that right. You don’t have the right to go into an aged-care home unvaccinated and risk starting a Covid outbreak among the elderly. I have constituents with auto-immune conditions who run businesses.
“If they’re forced to serve unvaccinated customers, they’ll have to choose between risking their lives or shutting down their businesses. You don’t have the right to force them to make that choice.”
State to open critical new plant
TOWNSVILLE will become the home of a new critical mineral processing plant with the state government stepping in to support a new industry.
The state government will build and own a new common-use vanadium facility in the capital of the North, as the industry sits on the precipice of a boom.
The new facility will complement the state government’s plan to make Queensland the leading producer and exporter of new-economy minerals and the home of new industries.
In September a new vanadium mine at Saint Elmo was approved.
The Multicom project was the first cab off the rank in the industry, primed to make Queensland a global resources supplier.
Treasurer and Trade and Investment Minister Cameron Dick said the new facility was a major step forward for the state’s growing production of new economy minerals.
“We want regional Queensland to be a global leader when it comes to everything that’s part of the renewable energy revolution,” Mr Dick said.
“Vanadium is used for the construction of large-scale grid batteries that store their charge in tanks of liquid.
“Because they hold their charge in a liquid form, by building bigger tanks redox batteries can be built to a much larger scale, powering larger communities for longer.”
Mr Dick said Australia had the third largest deposits of vanadium resources, but currently does not produce a single kilogram of processed vanadium.
“The mining companies looking to process vanadium at an industrial scale don’t have the capital necessary to make that jump. That’s where our Government can step in.
“We will put at least $10 million towards this common-user facility, with the final amount depending on the outcome of the construction tender. A common-user facility can be used by multiple, smaller mining companies that do not have the available capital to set up their own processing facilities.
“This is an important step in attracting further investor interest and future offtake agreements.”
Mr Dick said the government was in the final stages of site selection for a facility in Townsville.
“Mining companies will be able to transport ore from their mine site to Townsville, enabling them to begin producing mineral samples at scale,” he said.
Construction is expected to start in 2022, with the plant scheduled to begin operating in 2023.
Resources Minister and Townsville MP Scott Stewart said the project was a key milestone in delivering on the work of the North West Minerals Province Taskforce.
“The Saint Elmo mine alone will support up to 400 regional jobs, laying the foundation for a potential next level industry in Queensland manufacturing vanadium redox flow batteries,” he said.
“Saint Elmo is just the beginning, with other companies progressing other potential vanadium mines in what could become a world-class vanadium hub in the North West, so having this processing facility in Townsville will ensure locals reap the benefits.”
Mr Stewart said the Department of Resources would go to market in the new year with detailed engineering assessments and costings for the plant.
Thuringowa MP Aaron Harper said the new project would create jobs in Townsville.
“This processing plant which will usher in new employment opportunities for Townsville, both at the site itself, and at the Port of Townsville where it will support jobs through exports,” he said.
Mundingburra MP Les Walker said the government wanted to ensure all of North Queensland benefits.
Townsville experiencing water issues due to hot winter, low rain
WATER restrictions could be in store for Townsville residents if the wet season doesn’t deliver – but not because the city is running low on H20.
A warm winter and minimal rain has increased nutrient levels in the Ross River Dam, leading to algal blooms and an increase in naturally occurring organic compounds in the water network.
However, Mayor Jenny Hill is confident the measures Townsville City Council has put in place will make it highly unlikely the region will experience tougher restrictions.
Earlier this year, the council installed aerators in the Ross River Dam to improve dissolved oxygen concentrations, and it started construction of two $27.5m clarifiers at the Douglas Water Treatment Plant in a bid to stop blue green algae blooms.
The council has also began adding powdered activated carbon at the treatment plant to mitigate odour and toxin risks and is adding pre-chlorination to all modules at the treatment plant to improve soluble metal removal.
Earlier this month, the council also revealed it was detecting low concentrations of naturally occurring organic compounds in some parts of the water network across Townsville, which may give the water an earthy taste and odour.
The compounds, Methylisoborneol (MIB) and Geosmin, are produced by naturally occurring algae and bacteria in source waters especially in tropical areas and can be detected at low concentrations by humans.
The compounds cannot be removed from water using routine treatment processes, but have no health effects and are safe to drink.
Cr Hill said the blue green algae was caused by a build-up of nitrogen and phosphate in the water.
“The first problem we had was around mid-to-late October with the blue green algae in Ross River Dam,” Cr Hill said.
“The blue green algae is common in waterways in northern Australia. You get algae blooms because you get build up of nitrogen and phosphate in the water.
“And, we haven’t had a cold winter. Normally the temperature drops to 20C and it can be as low as 6C overnight.
“We didn’t really get that winter weather, so we didn’t see a drop in the water temperatures, which meant we didn’t see a drop in the algae numbers.”
Cr Hill said all the measures the council had put in place were to ensure no restrictions were introduced.
“We’re trying really hard to make sure that won’t happen, and the best thing to ensure that it doesn’t happen is if we get a decent wet season.
“We’ve had a bit of rain, but let’s wait and see.”
Originally published as Townsville hospitality and entertainment businesses will no longer have to adhere to strict capacity restrictions
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