It’s a deal: Covid-19 camp for Brisbane city centre

The federal and Queensland ­governments have agreed to build a 1000-bed international quarantine centre in Brisbane, ending months of bickering.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Peter Wallis

The federal and Queensland ­governments have agreed to build a 1000-bed international quarantine centre in Brisbane, ending months of bickering over the location of the nation’s third dedicated Covid camp.

The memorandum of understanding calls for an army supply dump at Pinkenba, near Brisbane airport, to be redeveloped and operational as a quarantine centre by mid-2022, a tight timeframe.

Under the deal, Canberra will pay for the design, construction and fit-out of the “centre for ­national resilience” and Queensland will cover running costs.

The Australian understands the new camp will handle arrivals above an existing cap of 650 ­people a week, and the state government will continue to explore the option of a regional centre outside Toowoomba to ease pressure on hotel quarantine.

The move came as Queensland police vowed to stop every car crossing from locked-down NSW, with the disruption spilling into schools and delivering ­another blow to small business, tourism operators and workers on both sides of the border.

The MOU signed last week outlines a deal similar to that for the purpose-built quarantine centre at Mickleham in Melbourne’s north, under construction and due to open by the end of the year.

To save costs, the agreement gives the federal government ­“absolute discretion” to use some or all of the contractors involved in the Mickleham project.

This was modelled on the Howard Springs quarantine centre outside Darwin, a former mining camp repurposed to accom­mo­date incoming international air arrivals after the pandemic hit.

Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young will have the final say on the specifics concerning infection control, including ventilation and airconditioning of the accommodation units.

“Detailed designs from the Centre for National Resilience Melbourne will be available for review and local modification as required,” the MOU states.

The agreement clears the way for planning to begin on the federal site, although this was not the Queensland government’s preference.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wanted the centre built outside Brisbane to minimise the threat of the virus escaping into the population centre.

The rich-listed Wagner family’s airport at Wellcamp, near Toowoomba, was the state government’s pick but Scott Morrison insisted the site had to be closer to a tertiary hospital and federally owned to provide “an enduring asset”.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said dedicated quarantine facilities were long overdue. “We have been calling for them since at least December last year,” he said.

“With NSW in lockdown, we cannot afford more leaks from hotel quarantine.

“In order to reduce use of hotel quarantine, the Palaszczuk government also supports a regional quarantine facility at Wellcamp.”

For the first time since emerging last week from a snap seven-day lockdown to contain the Brisbane schools outbreak, Queens­land on Sunday registered no new community-based Covid cases.

Checkpoints on the NSW border would intercept every vehicle from that state, police commissioner Katarina Carroll said.

“I ask Queenslanders not to travel into NSW and those coming from NSW can only come in if they have an exemption or are part of the essential worker group,” she said.

This poses a logistical nightmare for thousands who live on one side of the border and work on the other, or who rely on ser­vices across the state line.