Queensland border: Victorians to be sent to hotel quarantine

Queensland has told people from Victoria to not come to the state, with anyone from a Melbourne virus hotspot to be sent straight to hotel quarantine.

After recording another zero day, Queensland has made the bold decision to turn away Victorians to protect the state from coronavirus.

Police Minister Mark Ryan said Queensland will take “tough” action on its border controls, including directing Australians who have been in or from Victoria straight to hotel quarantine.

“To stop this virus coming to Queensland, we have already taken tough action and will continue to take tough action and that tough action includes having robust border controls, ensuring that people who have been in Victoria or are coming from Victoria are appropriately directed to quarantine or turn away,” Mr Ryan said on Saturday morning.

“Yes, that might mean some inconvenience, and, yes, when you’re crossing the border you might think that you’re OK, but what about the people in the car in front of you, and what about the people in the car behind you?

“The reason why police are taking robust action on our border is to stop the virus coming to Queensland.

“We know that there is community transmission in other parts of Australia, particularly Victoria.

“We need to stop the virus coming to Queensland and we have done extraordinarily well so far. We are down to one active case in Queensland and that is because of the hard efforts of everyone in Queensland and, of course, the hard efforts of the Queensland Police Service.

“Make no mistake about it, we will do whatever it takes to keep Queenslanders safe and to keep this virus out of Queensland because we know that when you have this virus spreading through communities, and you can see that around the world right now, that there are tragic and devastating outcomes.”

Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski added the only way to avoid hotel quarantine if you had been in Victoria was to not come into Queensland.

“Don’t come to Queensland…,” he said.

“Because if you do, and you’re not otherwise officially exempt, you will be required to go into 14 days of mandatory self-paid quarantine.”

He also explained why there were massive queues at the NSW-Queensland border on Friday, after the state brought in a new pass needed to enter from midday on Friday.

“I was at the Gold Coast border yesterday and clearly most people had the old passes, they haven’t got the new one,” he said.

“The message to the community is get online, go to the Queensland Government website and you will see there the border pass process.

“Just by going through that process, you will be able to work out pretty clearly whether you are a person who can come into Queensland and get a border declaration pass or whether you will be someone subject to quarantine.

“That at the moment is focused on anyone who has been in Victoria for the past 14 days.

Mr Gollschewski added 24 flights had arrived in Queensland this morning, three of which were from Victoria. All 3500 passengers had been processed accordingly.