Annastacia Palaszczuk ties border opening to hospital funding

Queensland’s border with Victoria and NSW could remain shut until the commonwealth agrees to a major increase in hospital funding, Annastacia Palaszczuk says.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has declined to say how high vaccination coverage would need to be for borders to reopen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jono Searle

Queensland’s border with Victoria and NSW could remain shut until the commonwealth agrees to a major increase in hospital funding, Annastacia Palaszczuk says.

“I am not going to put Queenslanders at risk until both of those issues are sorted out,” Ms Palaszczuk said on Friday. “Which means a big injection of funds from the federal government into the states to make sure the hospitals are able to cope with the growth (in cases) that will happen.”

But Daniel Andrews says he intends to reopen his state’s border with NSW as soon as possible.

“Once we get to 80 per cent it’s my intention to have freedom of movement – that’s always been our goal,” the Victorian Premier said. “We just have to wait and see where things are at that point.”

The Queensland ultimatum comes amid a row over when the border will reopen, with Ms Palaszczuk indicating she may not lift restrictions ahead of the Christmas holiday period. The national cabinet had agreed to a road map that recommended interstate restrictions end once Covid-19 vaccine coverage reached 80 per cent.

Her comments follow increasing concerns among states and territories that hospitals will not be able to cope with a surge of infections as restrictions ease.

In a letter to Health Minister Greg Hunt on Thursday, state and territory officials warned their health systems were under “unrelenting strain” and urged the commonwealth to split the cost of operating the public hospital system until the middle of 2023.

“We need an urgent, practical, collaborative funding solution until we get to a ‘living with Covid’ point and the national funding model has time to reflect these higher costs,” the letter reads. “We need an urgent, practical, collaborative funding solution until we get to a ‘living with Covid’ point and the national funding model has time to reflect these higher costs.”

In their letter to Mr Hunt, state and territory health ministers said capacity issues were exacerbated by patients who were ready for discharge but forced to remain in hospital because “they are unable to access the appropriate aged care or disability supports”.

“Our ability to respond is already being outstripped by demand, which is increasing as we move into the next phase of the pandemic,” they wrote.

In response, Mr Hunt said: “All ministers recently signed on to a five-year agreement which includes an additional $35bn in funding. We‘ve also invested an additional $6bn in hospitals … through the Covid-19 pandemic”.

Scott Morrison also rejected Ms Palaszczuk’s demand for more funding, telling reporters the states had been “showered in cash” and had almost two years to prepare their hospital systems.

“The pandemic should not be used as an excuse for shakedown politics,” the Prime Minister said.

“There has been a lot of talk about what the responsibilities of the states are. I can tell you what one of them is – run your public hospitals and get them ready to deal with any surge demand that would come,” he said.

“Our government has increased funding to hospitals across the nation by over 70 per cent since we came to government. The states have increased their funding by just over 40 per cent,” he said.

The Australian on Friday reported that health officials told a recent roundtable the hospital system was buckling – not just from increased admissions but also from workforce burnout and the diversion of staff to testing and vaccination centres.

At a press conference on Friday, Ms Palaszczuk said there were two key thresholds to reopening – high vaccination rates and increased hospital capacity – and that it would be “ irresponsible” to open international borders until those two demands were met.

Ms Palaszczuk declined to say how high vaccination coverage would need to be for borders to reopen and did not confirm they would once 80 per cent of adults had been inoculated. “There is a lot of work that needs to happen and we have got to get this right. There is no use rushing,” she said.

Additional reporting: Remy Varga