Covid Gold Coast: Opposition MP Michael Hart’s call for cross border committee as Laura Gerber reveals Coast woman missed father’s death
A Gold Coast woman was denied entry to Queensland to be at her dying father’s bedside as NRL families were given fast access, state Parliament has been told.
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A GOLD Coast woman who travelled to NSW for work could not say a final goodbye to her dying father as as NRL families were given quick entry to Queensland, State Parliament was told.
Currumbin MP Laura Gerber has questioned Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on why the State was opening up the border to the wives, girlfriends and children of rugby league stars.
“A Currumbin Valley constituent who was in New South Wales for work was denied entry back into Queensland to be at her dying father’s bedside,” Ms Gerber said.
She said the woman’s father died on Monday.
“So while the Palaszczuk Labor government was making plans to allow NRL families to come to Queensland, my constituent missed out on saying a final goodbye to her father, and we are still trying to get her home – not so she can say goodbye now but so she can be at his funeral,” Ms Gerber said.
“If NRL families can have a league bubble, then the border community can have their border bubble back, and maybe my Tallebudgera Valley constituent could have said goodbye to her dad.”
Ms Gerber again asked if the Premier would accept her invitation to come to Coolangatta. “My community desperately needs the state government to support them,” she said.
It follows a Bulletin report which revealed a plan to create a cross-border group of MPs and councillors to find a solution to ease COVID restrictions had been met with silence from the State Government.
Opposition frontbencher and Burleigh LNP MP Michael Hart told Parliament he had written to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk about a solution to the border crisis, as talks continue between both States around lockdown restrictions.
“Two weeks ago I wrote to her, but I have had no reply. I am aware that the Premier keeps saying that she has talked to the New South Wales Premier. The New South Wales Premier says that the Queensland Premier has not actually spoken to her at all about moving the borders,” he said.
Mr Hart accused Labor of saying it wanted to move border but acting to stop it from happening.
“New South Wales put forward some very sensible suggestions yesterday around moving the borders, but that was rejected by Queensland,” he said.
“It put forward some very sensible suggestions about reworking the essential workers to include healthcare workers, to include education workers, to include childcare workers. That, too, was rejected by the Queensland Government.”
“It put forward very sensible suggestions to involve rapid testing at the border. That, too,
was rejected by the Queensland government.”
In his letter to the Premier, Mr Hart explained the hardship faced by border residents.
“Families are being torn apart because of your border restrictions with mothers, fathers and their children turned away at the border if they don’t have court orders regarding custody
arrangements,” he wrote.
“This ignores those families that have amicable non-court documented parenting arrangements and prevents children from seeing a parent as well as placing hardship on the parents.”
He said the new announcement on Monday about essential personnel having had a least one Covid vaccine shot to cross the border from Friday has also added to confusion.
Mr Hart said there was “no clear process to prove that”.
“My office is fielding an enormous volume of calls and emails from people wanting further information on the directive and are panicked as they can’t gain access to a vaccination
even if they want to by Friday,” he wrote.
EARLIER:
THE Gold Coast Mayor is appealing to Queensland’s Premier to stick to “suburb” only lockdowns in future - and hike fines or impound vehicles for those defying health orders.
Mayor Tom Tate has written to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pleading for the more nuanced approach to outbreaks after two debilitating Gold Coast lockdowns - despite zero community Covid cases.
The most recent lockdowns - one for three days and one for eight in July and August - cost the Gold Coast economy an estimated $550 million.
Cr Tate refused to reveal specific contents of his letter but said: “Every effort must be made now to prepare for future localised outbreaks of Covid-19.
“Once we hit the 70-plus vaccination rate across Australia lockdowns should be almost a thing of the past but if they need to be applied, they should be very specific to suburbs, or groups of suburbs, where the community-to-community transmission has been identified.
“Localised outbreaks require localised responses and I encourage the State to strengthen monetary fines for clear Covid breaches or even start to impound vehicles where offenders are blatantly breaching Covid restrictions.”
People face four-figure fines for breaching public health orders.
The mid-year lockdowns, plus extended border closure with virtually all other states including major visitor markets Victoria and NSW thanks to Delta strain outbreaks, have also put $120 million of events planned through until December in doubt.
A group of Opposition MPs led by Mermaid Beach MP Ray Stevens and Coomera MP Michael Crandon have also lodged a “statement of reservation” with the Parliament’s Economics and Governance Committee urging a way forward that doesn’t as adversely affect the community.
Their statement warned the tourism sector was “suffering exponentially by the closure of borders” and it was “imperative any further closures of state borders and community lockdowns be based on substantial and verifiable outbreak threats rather than the current random advice provided through political narrative”.
The statement said politics had “no place” in pandemics. It called for “a clear and defined pathway to deal with what we all recognise is a serious public health crisis, essential to take this great State forward”.
Mr Crandon said the Non-Government State of Reservation would be tabled in Parliament where LNP MPs intended to speak and caution the government on how it was using its emergency powers under Covid.
The Coomera MP said the most recent lockdown of 11 local governments southeast areas including the Gold Coast was an example of how the government had failed to fine tune the weaponry it had with its new powers.
“You know the (economic) impact it had on the Gold Coast. They had one suspect case on the Coast and we were locked down for so long,” Mr Crandon said. “There was the weakest excuse, they were saying you can’t trust Brisbane people to travel down to the Coast.”
Mr Crandon said the Government needed to use data rather than emotion in its decision making, which would have led to the Coast not being placed in lockdown.
Mayor’s plea: ‘Please help our Tweed brothers and sisters’
GOLD Coast Mayor Tom Tate is urging the Queensland and NSW governments to find a quick solution on the border, as marathon negotiations continue on a COVID solution.
“All we want is to save our brothers and sisters in the Tweed to be able to commute with Coolangatta as one community. And they’ve being doing this for 50 years,” Cr Tate told the Bulletin.
The border checkpoint relocation talks started about 3pm on Tuesday and continued late into the night with senior police, health officers and local government representatives looking at possible changes to ease restrictions for local communities.
The Bulletin understands staffers are dealing with a mountain of paperwork and requests, and there is no real breakthrough yet on establishing Queensland’s suggestion for the Tweed River to be the new border geographical marker.
The talks are underway after the Bulletin in several reports showed the lockdown was causing a health crisis and some business leaders were suicidal after losing 80 per cent of their trade.
Cr Tate on Wednesday urged both state governments to find a compromise.
As council launches its $3 million Play Money voucher scheme – to discount tourism activities for patrons – the Mayor on Wednesday urged residents to log on to the Destination Gold Coast website on September 16 and select Coolangatta traders who had registered.
He said he was buoyed by news that talks were continuing between various state officials about a possible border shift to the River.
Meanwhile, Tweed MP Geoff Provest in a statement has sent a “please explain” to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, joining a chorus of politicians condemning the State’s decision to grant an exemption to NRL players’ families and officials.
“How is it possible that a plane full of NRL players, their families and associates, were allowed to seamlessly cross the border into Queensland, flying from Sydney to Brisbane, landing and disembarking without a hitch,” Mr Provest said.
“Yet residents living on the border are kept locked out, communities in both states divided by the Queensland Government’s hard border closure, depriving residents of work and vital health care. This display of blatant hypocrisy by the Queensland Government is unacceptable. Why has the QLD Government prioritised a sporting team over our border communities.”
Mr Provest called on the Government “to move quickly and accommodate a genuine border bubble”, adding that the NSW Government was ready to work with Queensland to make life better for those living on the border.
“I am asking Queensland to apply the same level of courtesy they did to a sporting code, to the longstanding families, workers and residents of our states,” he said.
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