Queensland border restrictions mean Newcastle FIFO father can’t see his newborn baby

A NSW family has begged the Queensland government to ease its border restrictions, which have forced a fly-in-fly-out dad to be separated from his baby.

A Newcastle man doesn’t know when he will be able to see his newborn daughter due to harsh Queensland border restrictions.

Fly-in-fly-out worker Chris Bennett, who is based in Wangi Wangi, welcomed his first child, Adalyn, with his partner Laura Goff seven weeks ago.

After spending six weeks at home, Mr Bennett, 27, had to go back to work in the mines at Moranbah in North Queensland and has spent the last two weeks in quarantine in a Brisbane hotel, where the mandatory cost is $2800.

But given his roster is seven days on, seven days off, it wouldn’t be financially viable for Mr Bennett to return home for a few days only to do another stint in isolation when he has to re-enter the sunshine state – and miss out on an entire week’s work.

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Laura Goff, 29, has been left to look after her newborn daughter without the help of her partner.

It comes as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was heavily criticised for having double standards, after allowing 400 AFL players and their partners to enter Queensland ahead of the footy finals, but is continuing a hard line stance with everyday families.

“Every day I get up and I listen to the TV to see if they’ve given a date yet (to reopen the border) or allowed any extra exemptions,” Ms Goff, 29, told the Newcastle Herald.

“They’ve just let a whole football code go over the border and stay in a hotel, with their wives having cocktails with each other not social distancing at the swim-up bar, and Chris is in quarantine and I’m trying to take photos and videos of our baby smiling for the first time so he is not missing out.

“I feel like there is an easier way than making an Australian pay $2800 for quarantine (to cross a state border).”

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At the moment, the entire state of NSW is considered a hotspot by Queensland, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison declaring the state as the “golden standard” for how it has managed contact tracing and kept coronavirus numbers low.

Mr Morrison attempted to reason with Ms Palaszczuk during last week’s National Cabinet meeting, where he urged all states to agree to a COVID “hotspot” definition so they could re-open borders sooner.

But the effort was fruitless, with Ms Palaszczuk determining the border would not reopen until NSW has two incubation periods of no community transmission.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been accused of playing politics, given the state election is weeks away. Picture: Adam Head

Mr Bennett said he didn’t wish to complain as FIFO work was his choice to support his family, but added he was frustrated by the Queensland government’s lack of transparency.

“We choose to do FIFO work, I’ve done it for six years, but the issue is not knowing when I’m going home now,” Mr Bennett said.

“Going forward, even if they do open the borders, how do we know they’re not going to shut them again and I’m back in that situation.

“They haven’t brought out a definition of a hotspot. She just makes it up as she goes, this Queensland premier.

“At least if she said, ‘if there’s going to be X amount of cases (in a region), I’m going to close the border’, you’d have a bit of a guideline.”