Border tragedy must move hearts, minds

The death of an unborn twin, whose mother should have been free to hasten to Brisbane for emergency treatment from Ballina in northern NSW, is heartbreaking. Whatever the medical complexities, it did not help the child’s mother or the baby that she had to wait for up to 16 hours for a care flight to Sydney when Brisbane’s neonatal hospitals were a two-hour drive up the highway. The family, understandably, feared that applying for a border exemption would have taken too long. They should have been confident to approach the border knowing they would be waved through. As Scott Morrison said on Friday: “Any Australian, wherever they are, who needs medical treatment should be able to access it, particularly in an emergency, in any Australian hospital, whatever state they’re in.”

Eleven days ago, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said: “People living in NSW, they have NSW hospitals. In Queensland we have Queensland hospitals for our people.” That selfish, parochial comment now appears merciless. On Friday, Ms Palaszczuk had no regrets about it when questioned about the baby’s death: “These are really difficult decisions,” she said. More difficult for some than others, Premier. Ms Palaszczuk, who does not normally appear heartless but is prone to political expediency, even in extraordinary circumstances, qualified her reaction. If someone needed emergency care, she said, “if they need a helicopter to fly them to one of our hospitals, that will happen … If they need an ambulance to come and the clinicians decide the best place and the fastest place they go, they will not be stopped from going”.

The death of this unborn twin, whose loss will forever haunt a grief-stricken family, may have done something that months of rational argument have not achieved. It has reminded Australians that we are a single, indivisible nation and that state borders were not designed as iron curtains to restrict freedom of movement, especially in moments of crisis. Most of the current border closures, especially in regions with few, if any, cases of COVID-19, are pointless. But premiers perceive them to be popular. That is despite the closures devastating travel and tourism, sending once-viable businesses into bankruptcy, costing tens of thousands of jobs and piling billions of dollars of extra debt on to taxpayers. They also appear to violate the Constitution. None of that has cut through. But the death of an unborn infant is a different story.

As the child’s grandfather, Alan Watt, who has wept for most of the past 24 hours, said on Friday: “The same thing could’ve happened if they could’ve gone to the Brisbane Hospital with what’s happened to them now, but the fact is it could have made a difference.” With the woman requiring surgery, the family’s reluctance to tackle a behemoth of bureaucracy was understandable. Despite the mum’s preference to be treated in Brisbane, NSW authorities advised her to go to Sydney because of the border closure. Northern NSW Local Health District chief Wayne Jones says that under the Queensland border direction, the couple would have had to quarantine in a government hotel for 14 days at their own expense before the procedure. That is inhumane and absurd.

Where border restrictions remain, they need to be managed with compassion, common sense and understanding of all the risks, not just COVID risks as the Prime Minister says: “There can’t just be blanket arrangements here, otherwise you place at risk the very real circumstances, which terribly sadly we’ve seen occur.”

Border closures with Victoria excepted, the states’ clinging to hard borders is a failure to assert the kind of effective leadership that would help communities open up from COVID while continuing sensible precautions. Ms Palaszczuk’s announcement on Friday that organised events at this year’s schoolies festival at the Gold Coast had been cancelled is a case in point. Under the strategy to suppress, not eliminate, COVID, what efforts were made to make the event safer? The decision will be a further blow to struggling tourism and hospitality businesses on the coast. Depending on restrictions, schoolies will seek out alternative venues. After such a disrupted Year 12, they will not want to miss out on a rite of passage. Mr Morrison is right. The “idea that we are going to live with domestic borders until we find a vaccine is a recipe for economic ruin”. The status quo is now intolerable. The facade of “we’re all in this together” is in ruins. He needs to exert federal powers to effect change. And the loss of a bub should move state authorities’ hearts and minds.