Coronavirus: No travel but mum in quarantine

Moko Ngawhare-Pounamu had not considered a two-week quarantine at a Tullamarine hotel — after all, she hadn’t left Melbourne.

Moko Ngawhare-Pounamu with Sienna, 10, and Aiden, 12, in hotel quarantine in Melbourne on Wednesday. Picture: Paul Jeffers

Moko Ngawhare-Pounamu had not considered the possibility of two-week quarantine at a Tullamarine hotel, even after Victoria shut its border with NSW — after all, she hadn’t left Melbourne.

But when her children, Aiden Ella, 12, and Sienna Ella, 10, flew in to Melbourne early on New Year’s Day — having spent time with their father in Maroubra, in Sydney’s east — it quickly became clear they would have to spend a fortnight at the Holiday Inn not far from the airport.

Despite requests from Ms Ngawhare-Pounamu, her children would not be allowed to quarantine at home in Tarneit, in Melbourne’s far west.

So, with no change of clothes, she joined her children in the hotel room. Her car is still sitting in the airport carpark. “I bawled my eyes out, there was nothing I could do,” Ms Ngawhare-Pounamu said. “I was upset, I was angry.

“The way people were looking at us, even people who were still travelling, they were looking at us like we were diseases.”

It was the children’s grandfather, Kenny Ella, 61, who booked their flights home after seeing the news that all Victorians would have to return home by midnight on January 1. “From what I saw on the news, they’d get down (and) they’d have like a swab and they’d go and isolate for three days,” he said.

Mr Ella said given his grandchildren’s age, they should be allowed to quarantine at home.

“I think it’s disgusting for everybody on that flight,” he said. “It’s wrong.”

Under Department of Health and Human Services rules, anyone in the Sydney metropolitan area has been forbidden from travelling to Victoria since ¬December 21, as the city’s northern beaches cluster grew.

That ban was extended to all of NSW on New Year’s Day.

Aiden and Sienna — part of the celebrated Ella family whose members include high-profile former rugby stars Mark, Gary and Glen Ella, former rugby league player Steve Ella and netball champion Marcia Ella-Duncan — were not permitted to quarantine at home.

“If I had known this was going to happen, hotel quarantine, I would have let my kids stay there with their father,” Ms Ngawhare-Pounamu said.

A DHHS spokeswoman said it was “proactively reviewing the circumstances of people returning from NSW to assess whether their mandatory quarantine would be more appropriate at home rather than in a hotel”.

But Victorian Liberal health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the rushed decision to shut the border had put lives at risk.

“Now Victorians are suffering because of borders being indefinitely closed and the Government having no plan to reunite them with their families,” Ms Crozier said.

More than 60,000 Victorians returned to the state after the government announced borders would close on January 1.

The Australian on Wednesday reported there were 248 people in hotel quarantine and 1612 quarantining at home. On Tuesday, some in Victoria’s hotel quarantine program received late-night correspondence indicating they may be able to return home to complete their isolation — including those who travelled from outside of Sydney but who had visited the city within the past fortnight.

Health Minister Martin Foley said the exemptions process for entering Victoria in NSW was speeding up. “Whether you’re in hotel quarantine or whether you’re seeking an exemption from NSW, the process is the same,” Mr Foley said. “Each case is determined on its merit.”

The Australian on Wednesday reported Sydney couple Dominic Galati, 58, and Zaklina Blazeski, 42, had also been put into hotel quarantine at the Holiday Inn despite claiming to have been handed a travel permit that said they were allowed to visit Melbourne for a weekend business trip.

Mr Galati said they had received two negative test results for coronavirus while in quarantine and were happy to return and self isolate at their home in the Sydney CBD. Ms Blazeski has a seven-year-old child in Sydney and said she did not have medication for her thyroid condition.

The couple was only meant to stay for the weekend in Victoria as Mr Galati’s infant formula business CARE A2 Milk is manufactured in the state.

Mr Galati said he initially refused to co-operate with health officers when they told him he had to isolate after he arrived on Friday. He said Victoria Police and eventually the Australian Federal Police were called.

Mr Galati said the health officers told him his permit was no longer valid, so he successfully applied for several new permits in front of them. “We did the process online and we were granted permits again … we got six permits again in total allowing us to come into Victoria,” he said.