Easing of border restrictions now up in the air as QLD Government strives to keep Covid out

It doesn’t look like the border will open any time soon, but today there were signs lockdown may end for people on the Northern Rivers.

While it’s not looking promising the QLD border will open any time soon, the NSW Premier has hinted lockdown may still end on Saturday for people in Northern NSW.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro gave hope for restrictions easing soon in the regio at a press conference today.

“I hope, fingers crossed, all going well, we can lift restrictions in the regions later this week,” he said.

Weekend protests and a Covid case at Ballina have done nothing to give the QLD Government cause to ease border restrictions however.

The QLD Government expressed sympathy for people who live in border regions, but did not apologise for making it a priority to stop Covid-19 from crossing the border.

Escalating Covid number in NSW and the failure to heed stay-at-home orders put previous plans to ease restrictions when vaccination rates hit 80 per cent in jeopardy.

QLD Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the four-stage plan for easing restrictions based by vaccination rates was “endorsed before the NSW outbreak”.

This comes in contrast to the message from Prime Minister Scott Morrison today, who insisted exploding case numbers in NSW do not change the vaccination milestones for easing restrictions and lockdowns

But the QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said national cabinet had also agreed the extra modelling needed to be done based on the current situation.

“They have commissioned more research because the goalposts have changed. It was premised on there being 30 cases in the community and now there are thousands,” the Premier said of the Doherty research.

Protestors at the New South Wales Queensland border protesting the covid vaccine, the border rules and the New South Wales lockdown on August 22, 2021. Photo: Liana Walker

She called protesting at the QLD/NSW border yesterday, “very disappointing”.

Ms Palaszczuk said while she understood the difficulties people were facing, it was the “kind of behaviour that puts people at risk”.

“NSW has stay-at-home orders for a reason. If you have a stay-at-home order, stay-at-home,” she said.

And those orders applied to QLDers coming into NSW for work.

The QLD government said it had done all it could to make life easier for those who worked on either side of the border.

A proposition to move the border checkpoint south to the Tweed River, that made “commonsense” in keeping the community together, had been “flatly refused” by the NSW Government Ms Palaszczuk said.

“We have tried,” she said, before urging people to lobby their local government representatives to support the move.

The NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro claimed working with the Queensland Government to ensure NSW residents are not affected in their daily lives had been a hard task.

“The language that I am hearing from the Queensland Government, regardless whether we are in lockdown or not in that part of the state, I’m not convinced you will have any access across the border under the current situation,” Mr Barilaro said.

“The Queensland government has its own rules, and it’s probably one of the tougher borders to work with,” he said.

“Premier Palaszuck has been quite blunt about what she wants to see in that border, on vaccinations, movement of people and that makes it very difficult.

“We would negotiate via the cross border commissioner with other governments about access for authorised workers and health workers, emergency and health workers, which are important, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you get the outcome that we want in NSW.”

Personnel from the Australian Defence Forces will join police on Wednesday to check people are complying with public health orders, and are permitted to enter QLD.

QLD Police said of the 1739 vehicles that tried to cross the QLD border yesterday, including 1060 freight vehicles, only 154 were refused entry for not having the required passes.

They said 210 essential workers had crossed the border, and they all had the required documentation.

Lynne Weir, acting chief executive Northern NSW Local Health District, said NSW Health was helping people who needed to cross the border get vaccinated.

“So essential workers - which are really medical practitioners - they need one dose but anyone who’s a critical worker, who may be a cleaner, caterer, administration, they need to be fully vaccinated to cross the border,” Ms Weir said.

“That’s the regulation at this stage, as you know they are changing.”

“We have vaccines available at Tweed particularly for those who need to be having their doses to cross the border.

“Last week we vaccinated our staff, ambulance and police to ensure people were ready to cross the border on Saturday.

Ms Palaszczuk reiterated the importance of strict border control, saying a person who tried to cross the border but was turned away, later tested positive to Covid-19.

She said her goal was always to suppress the virus and so there would be some limited and specified restrictions and lockdowns going forward.

“This is a book that hasn’t been written, folks,” she said.

“This is uncharted territory.”