Coronavirus: Queensland Wellcamp quarantine plan ‘still on the table’
Queensland’s proposed Wellcamp quarantine facility is being actively discussed by federal and state bureaucracies.
Queensland’s proposed Wellcamp quarantine facility is still on the table and being actively discussed by federal and state bureaucracies.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the dedicated 1000-room camp, to be built next to the privately owned Wellcamp airport near Toowoomba, was still under consideration, despite it failing to meet key federal government funding criteria.
She has not received a response from Scott Morrison since her government submitted a 95-page pitch.
There was no funding set aside for the project, expected to cost about $300m in its first year, in Tuesday’s Queensland budget but Treasurer Cameron Dick said there were funding streams available to progress the facility if it were given the green light by the Prime Minister.
Speaking after the state budget was handed down on Tuesday, Ms Palaszczuk said it was “not actually correct” to say they Wellcamp proposal had been ruled out and her department was in talks with its federal counterpart. “What I’m hearing is that there is a lot of conversations continuing between the two departments,” she said.
“I have not had a letter from the Prime Minister ruling that out yet.”
A senior government source said Mr Morrison had not made a final decision on the project.
The Wellcamp proposal was listed as an “emerging fiscal pressure” on the budget, which promised a slim $153m surplus in 2024-25.
Mr Dick said the government was “ready to go” if the federal government agreed to pay half of the public cost. “If we need to make provisions, if we need to find the funds, I can assure you we will find the funds straight away,” he said.
Part of the cost to government would be recouped by arrivals in their quarantine fees and the Wagner Corporation, which owns Wellcamp Airport, would build and run the facility.
“We’ve been raising this consistently with the federal government,” Mr Dick told ABC Radio on Wednesday, but the federal government was “looking for every excuse under the sun not to fund it”.
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