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Footage shows relaxed scenes from AFL hub amid calls for exemption overhaul
By Matt Dennien and Lydia Lynch
Footage has emerged of the relaxed scenes inside the Queensland AFL hub as critics call on the state government to ease quarantine exemptions for others trying to enter the state.
About 400 executives, staff and families flew into the Gold Coast golf club hired out by the league this week, ahead of the historic Gabba grand final to be played on the night of October 24.
But the move comes after numerous examples of hotel quarantine exemptions being denied to those seeking a return to Queensland and complaints about the conditions experienced over the 14-day self-funded stays.
While some of those in the standard hotel quarantine program have raised concerns about access to fresh air and even food, those inside the AFL hub appear free to drink and play by the pool.
Chief health officer Jeannette Young has assured the process does not show a double standard, with the exemptions granted for families of the group as they were "supporting the people who are putting this event on".
"This event is an important event and it needs to be put on under a COVID-safe plan, which has happened," Dr Young told reporters on Thursday.
"All of them are going into hotel quarantine, the AFL has stood up a hotel to do that and they are managing that so it is not an impost on us."
LNP leader Deb Frecklington claimed Queenslanders wanted to know why the families of AFL officials were able to gain exemptions from standard hotel quarantine while others could not.
"What makes this more galling is that Queenslanders are being denied exemptions when they travel home from New South Wales after lifesaving surgery," she said.
Federal politicians including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud also heaped criticism Queensland's way on Thursday.
"The footy officials are sitting down by the pool bar in Queensland, to me that seems like double standards," Mr Frydenberg said.
It comes after a mother-to-be in Ballina, in northern NSW, was sent to a Sydney hospital by doctors rather than Brisbane after confusion about border crossing requirements.
A Brisbane private school launched an appeal this week for the government to extend travel exemptions to its boarding school students whose families live in northern NSW.
Dr Young said it was "the one standard" being applied to the exemptions under her team.
"We know that the highest risk of bringing the virus into the state is from areas that have higher amounts of community transmission."
Since the start of the pandemic, 77 per cent of all of Queensland's cases have been acquired overseas or interstate.
The public debate about continued border closures has flared up again in recent weeks after Dr Young again shut out travellers from NSW and the ACT, in addition to Victoria, citing 28-days without community transmission as the criteria to reopen them.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Ms Palaszczuk discussed the issue of exemptions for healthcare workers outside the border bubble this week ahead of a national cabinet discussion about hotspot definitions on Friday.
The Queensland premier has repeatedly scoffed at suggestions she was keeping the state locked down to help her win a third term in October.