NSW Treasurer refuses to pay hotel bills for quarantined interstate residents
A state v federal funding row has exploded over a plan to put up to 3000 returning Australian travellers a day in quarantine in Sydney hotels, with NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet vowing not to pay bills for interstate residents.
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As many as 3000 travellers a day will be put up in hotels around Sydney in strict quarantine from Saturday under new isolation measures that will lock up every international arrival in the country to stop the coronavirus spread.
But the plan — only signed off on Friday by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the leaders of every other state and territory — is set to explode into a funding row, with NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet refusing to pay for interstate residents who fly home via Sydney.
“The people of NSW are not going to pay for people from other states to stay for two weeks in our hotels,” Mr Perrottet told The Saturday Telegraph.
“We may as well throw in a BridgeClimb.”
The concern from the Treasurer was sounded as the state desperately tries to fund new intensive care beds and ventilators in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yesterday’s meeting of the National Cabinet signed off on the scheme that would require NSW taxpayers to put every international arrival from Sydney airport or cruise ships up in a hotel to quarantine them before they travelled home — even if they lived interstate.
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NSW would pay a disproportionately high cost for the scheme because most international flights, currently on limited routes, deposit travellers to Australia at Sydney airport.
NSW is also likely to bear the brunt of the federal government’s “mercy flights” rescuing stranded Australians overseas, with the latest — a flight from Peru with 260 people — expected within days.
Announcing the plan yesterday, Mr Morrison (left) conceded NSW would shoulder most of the burden. “The greatest stress and strain will be in NSW because they have the highest number of arrivals of any of the states and territories,” he said.
“For some, for example Tasmania, there are no international arrivals to Tasmania because they don’t have an international airport.
“That is why I do thank them. Those states that get the biggest share of arrivals are really having to step up in the national interest and I think that is a tremendous effort.”
NSW authorities were last night scrambling to finalise how the quarantine program would work, sourcing hotels around greater metropolitan Sydney, which would be guarded by police, and determining how hotel staff would be protected from the virus.
The government did not know last night precisely how many hotel rooms would be needed, with arrangements still being thrashed out. There are 3000 international arrivals expected at Sydney airport tomorrow.
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has been tasked to lead the NSW response.
Police Minister David Elliott said he was confident Sydney had enough hotels, adding that he hoped the process would “go at least some way into saving jobs in the hospitality industry”.
Asked if the guests would receive five-star accommodation, Mr Elliott said: “I don’t think so … the government won’t be picking up their room service alcohol bill.”
The Australian Defence Force has also been brought in to help police monitor people in mandatory quarantine at home.
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the “most important thing” Australia could do was “completely stop the capacity for any returning traveller transmitting the virus”.