NT claws back $7.4m in quarantine fees, 5 per cent of what government is expected to spend

The NT government has managed to claw back $7.4m in coronavirus quarantine fees, with just more than half of the thousands of bills issued paid in full so far.

The NT government has managed to claw back $7.4m in coronavirus quarantine fees, with just more than half of the thousands of bills issued paid in full so far.

With frontline coronavirus health and quarantine measures expected to cost the Northern Territory approximately $140 million by June next year, the amount recovered from charging people for quarantine is 5 per cent of what will be spent.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner said that “every dollar” spent on “controlling the virus” was worth it.

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Data from SecureNT, obtained by the NT News, shows 1134 invoices have been issued to the 2316 people that undertook hotel quarantine between March 24 and June 15, when all travellers into the NT had to spend two weeks in supervised quarantine.

This is an increase of 117 invoices since September 10, when IT issues caused the issuing of bills to stall.

Of those, 532 have been paid in full as at November 25, totalling almost $1.4m.

A spokesman for SecureNT stressed that more than one person could be included on a single invoice in the case of families or groups like the ni-Vanuatu workers that arrived to harvest mangoes.

As of this week a total of 4373 invoices had been sent to domestic travellers forced to quarantine in the disused miners village at Howard Springs or the facilities in Alice Springs when border restrictions shifted to the hot spot model on July 17.

SecureNT confirmed 2304 invoices had been paid in full, totalling $6m.

Authorities have also approved 1132 payment plans for those in financial hardship, with money flowing on 290 invoices.

All debts will be subject to “normal NT government recovery actions” according to SecureNT.