Qld vaccine ad campaign fails to address reopening plans

As a slick new ad campaign encourages Queenslanders to get vaccinated, the State Government has given its strongest indication yet the borders will remain closed for Christmas. WATCH THE ADS

The Queensland Government has launched a new advertising assault telling Queenslanders to get vaccinated so they can go for brunch and travel again – but still can’t say what the pass mark will be for opening the borders.

It comes as Deputy Premier Steven Miles gave the strongest indication yet that Queensland’s borders will remain closed for Christmas.

The campaign urging people to roll up their sleeves hopes to assure those anxious or sceptical about the vaccine that the vaccines are safe, in order to help the state reach its 80 per cent target.
Just over 60 per cent of Queenslanders have had their first jab while almost 45 per cent of the state is fully vaccinated.

The advertising campaign started on Saturday and was filmed in locations across Queensland, including Ballandean, Toowoomba, Boonah, Brisbane, Cairns, Innisfail and Port Douglas will run across multiple channels including online, TV, radio and social media.

At its current pace of vaccination Queensland is not expected to reach the 80 per cent threshold – the percentage on the national road map for when the country should open up – until December 7.

Mr Miles said Queenslanders were already enjoying far more freedoms than many of its southern counterparts – like Delta-ravaged New South Wales and Victoria – and did not believe that Queenslanders wanted to “let Covid in for Christmas”.

“A lot of this discussion about the Queensland border is pretty academic, because the kind of the people that you’re saying should be allowed across our border are currently locked down in their homes by their own state governments and so the Queensland border should be relatively hypothetical because most of the people in New South Wales and Victoria shouldn’t be travelling to Queensland anyway,” Mr Miles said.

The Government has said it would wait until this week’s national cabinet meeting on Friday for updated modelling from the Doherty Institute before it made any decisions around whether Queensland’s borders would be open in time for the festive period.

Speaking on breakfast television on Sunday morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it was within the control of state leaders to decide whether families could be reunited for Christmas.
“I think that puts the big challenge on the premiers … there comes a time when you’ve got to honour the arrangement you’ve made with the Australian people, and that is when you get to 80 per cent vaccination, it’s very clear that you can start opening up,” he said.

When asked at the press conference when Queenslanders could expect an answer on what percentage of the population would need to be fully vaccinated before borders would open Mr Miles accused the Prime Minister of attempting to “distract” from his own problems.

“Frankly, I think the Prime Minister should be more focused on the health and wellbeing of people in New South Wales and Victoria, and on international affairs than what might happen in Queensland in a few months’ time,” he said.

“This bloke should focus on his job. You know, diplomacy is his job. International Trade is his job. Vaccination should be his job, but we’re doing it. Quarantine should have been his job, but we’re doing it. Keeping Covid out of New South Wales was his job and he failed at it.”

Queensland recorded no new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young again assured Queenslanders that all three vaccines – Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca – were safe to use and in plentiful supply across the state.
She pleaded with the vaccine hesitant to seek health advice from professionals if they were worried about getting the jab.

Originally published as Qld vaccine ad campaign fails to address reopening plans