Coronavirus Australia: QLD Premier calls for “spirit of federalism” to help VIC

QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the border could still reopen on July 10, despite Victoria’s outbreak.

Annastacia Palaszczuk says the rest of Australia needs to help Victoria get its corona­virus outbreak under control “in the spirit of federalism”.

Queensland’s Premier flagged a “serious discussion” at national cabinet on Friday about the Victorian situation but left the door open for her state’s border to reopen to all states on July 10.

Travelling through western Queensland, Ms Palaszczuk was asked whether it was now impossible for the border to reopen on that date, given a decision had to be made within a week.

Previously, Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young and Ms Palas­zczuk had said they wanted community transmission to be under control — preferably after four weeks with no new community-­acquired cases — in other states before Queensland borders reopened.

If that criteria were followed, the border would not reopen on July 10 because of the Victorian outbreak, where more than half of new cases are community transmissions.

“We’ve seen NSW get on top of community transmission, and a lot of states have concerns about Victoria … (border reopening) will be reviewed at the end of the month,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“There needs to be a serious discussion on Friday at national cabinet about the issues in Victoria.”

She said Queensland had sent a team to Victoria to help. “Let’s all help Victoria and help to get it under control, in the spirit of federalism,” she said.

On Tuesday, Dr Young told a parliamentary committee that Victoria was “in strife” because most of its new cases were community-­acquired. “Victoria is the risk now for the rest of the country,” she said.

Dr Young said Queensland had been able to lift restrictions on travel and public gatherings ­because the state had had “quite a period without cases so we were in a good position to remove those restrictions. Victoria never got down to that same level.”

Queensland had recorded zero new COVID-19 diagnoses overnight and has just two active cases out of a total of 1066 people who have had the virus. More than 334,000 tests have been conducted.