COVID border closures: Federal Government urged to stop state approach

Tourism bosses are urging Scott Morrison to intervene to stop states opening and shutting borders as businesses brace for a new $3 billion hit.

Tourism bosses and MPs are pleading with Prime Minister Scott Morrison to intervene to stop the open-shut approach of states on borders as businesses brace for a $3 billion hit from Christmas border closures.

The Australian Tourism and Industry Council (ATIC) is leading fresh calls for the Prime Minister to work towards a national approach to borders rather than letting states make those decisions on their own.

The calls come after the country was caught by surprise days before Christmas when the COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney led to sudden border shutdowns.

“These borders are changing so quickly the arrangements and conditions are altering literally within 24 hours’ notice,” ATIC executive director Simon Westaway told the ABC on Monday.

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“We have no consistency around the way that states and territories address COVID outbreaks or small hotspots, or larger hotspots. We’ve got to get a better system.”

Mr Westaway said while it was necessary to deal with significant outbreaks in communities and regions, “closing states is not rational when you have outbreaks in much smaller parts of the community”.

“The hard borders are not the only situation in play,” he said. “We should be using rapid antigen testing, so we can more quickly assess if there’s a person or family coming out of a cohort or a region that possibly may have COVID, or have very low levels, so can pass through a border.

“If we want to have a semblance of a visitor economy, which employs one in 12 Australians at the end of the day, we have to a bit more lateral in how we’re dealing with this. It requires the states and territories to come together with the Commonwealth.

A massive queue of vehicles heading to the ACT from NSW are by police stopped on Saturday due to the new ACT/NSW border closures. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

“Even if it’s a set of guidelines, nut them out and some principles in terms of how we can move forward so we don’t continue to have this level of confusion.

“The trouble is the can gets kicked down the road, economically, socially, it’s a regrettable situation, and we’re not seeing enough cohesiveness come together amongst our leaders. We’ve got complications like constitutions and the federation, but I think we’re smart enough to find some way through.”

Mr Westaway has also called on Mr Morrison to extend the Federal Government’s JobKeeper program beyond March to support the country’s battered tourism businesses.

“We don’t want the Federal Government to give up here,” he told Nine Newspapers.

“It’s become clear we do need to have an extension of JobKeeper beyond March.

“But the states should be held to account – if they’re going to hard borders, then they’re going to have to justify their decision to do that.”

Vehicles are stopped on the way to the ACT from NSW on Saturday as border restrictions change again. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

A number of other tourism groups have backed the call, including the Ai Group, whose chief executive Innes Willox said borders were being shut “at the drop of a hat”.

“Our economy can’t succeed without open borders and the more they are shut without thought to the broader consequences, the bigger the hit to business confidence and the longer our recovery will take.”

Political leaders, including Opposition Home Affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally, have also urged Mr Morrison “to lead” on state border decisions.

“National Cabinet is not due to meet until February,” Ms Keneally told Nine Newspapers.

“Mr Morrison should bring that meeting forward and work with the states to protect Australians from COVID-19 and help our economy recover to keep Australians in work.”

On Friday, Mr Morrison said he would like to see more consistency across the country regarding borders, but he respected the decisions of state and territory leaders.

“Look, the end of the day, state governments are elected by the people of their states to exercise their responsibilities when it comes to the public health of people in their state,” Mr Morrison said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says state and territory leaders have jurisdictional authority on border decisions. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

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“And as much as we would like there to be greater consistency across all of these things, we must respect their jurisdictional authority because they are ultimately responsible for what would happen in their state if there were to be an outbreak in their state.”

“As Prime Minister, I do respect that.”

Western Australia has re-established its hard border with Victoria in light of its recent outbreak while all states and territories have tightened border restrictions in response to the Sydney outbreak that emerged before Christmas.

Border closures over the usually bustling Christmas travel period is expected to cost tourism businesses around $3 billion in revenue.

Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood told Nine Newspapers extending JobKeeper for the tourism industry for an extra three months could cost as much as $1 billion, but the extra spending “would be justified”.

“(It) could raise some administrative challenges to offer (JobKeeper) to just one industry, but it’s probably worth the complexity in this case,” she said.