State of Origin battle going on over border closures

OPINION: After two weeks of bad headlines about NSW patients in dire ways, the Queenslanders blinked first

August 9, 10.35am, Griffith Street Coolangatta, Pedestrian foot traffic is stopped and checked for border passes as Queensland steps up its tightened security with Covid restrictions. Scott Powick Newscorp

IT feels like we are in a State of Origin battle over the border between Queensland and NSW and whose citizens are more COVID-19 clean.

While health and the lives of ordinary people should never be used as a political football, it has led to much angst and a state of confusion in and out of the so-called ‘border bubble’.

After a couple of weeks of increasingly bad headlines about NSW patients with dire and urgent medical needs accessing services that could only ever realistically be found over the border, the Queensland Government finally caved in.

While its soothing to know people on the Northern Rivers attending medical appointments in Queensland now won’t have to quarantine for 14 days at their own expense, if you want to find the clause where it says so – send out a search party.

That particular piece of the jigsaw puzzle is written almost as an aside as you apply for your pass to get up over he border. Importantly, it is there if you look hard enough

Here is what it states, if you can’t find it: “You are permitted to enter Queensland and must quarantine for the period of time you are required to be present in Queensland. Once care is complete, you must leave Queensland by the most direct route without stopping. You are not required to remain in quarantine for 14 days if your treatment is less than 14 days.”

Queensland’s hard border closure and the so-called ‘border bubble’ has led to an almost perpetual state of confusion.

The hard lockdown is throwing up all sorts of annoyances and anomalies

Like the 2483 postcode where, if you are from Tweed you can cross the border with an X pass, while if you are from the Byron side of the postcode, you are to be treated like the great unwashed.

What’s good for 2483 residents in Burringbar, Crabbes Creek, Mooball, Sleepy Hollow and Wooyung, is not for those in South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Mullumbimby, just a short drive down the highway.

The two sides of the postcode are not even supposed to mingle, in theory.

And people only a few kilometres on the Byron side, will continue to be treated like lepers begging for a bowl of rice outside the bubble.

It’s also good news for the towns of Urbenville, Croppa Creek, North Star, Deepwater and Emmaville and Mungindi, which have also been added to the bubble.

The rugby league State of Origin has got nothing on the battle for supremacy and boasting rights about COVID-19.