Keith Pitt slams Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s decision to keep Queensland’s borders closed

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s border closure gives her an election advantage, but frontbencher rules out using wage subsidies as leverage.

Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia Keith Pitt is frustrated by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk decision to keep the borders of his home state closed. Picture: News Regional Media

Water Minister Keith Pitt says he is frustrated by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk decision to keep the borders of his home state closed.

Mr Pitt said he knew the decision was “enormously popular” in his own electorate and among Queenslanders more generally, but it was having an “absolutely devastating” impact on border communities.

“Look I am frustrated,” Mr Pitt told Sky News on Sunday. “I know the Queensland Premier’s decisions are enormously popular, it‘s very popular in my electorate, but on the border communities in particular, it’s just been absolutely devastating.”

“One thing that they (the Australian people) will always demand is fairness, and at the moment they don‘t think the current situation is fair. Especially when you’ve got cancer and you can’t see the closest oncologist.”

Mr Pitt said the decision was impacting the ability of the Liberal National Party to campaign ahead of the Queensland state election with Scott Morrison unable to join candidate and opposition leader Deb Frecklington on the hustings.

He said the situation where those living in border communities were unable to get to their jobs on the other side of the border was wrong and “needs to be dealt with.” But he ruled out withdrawing Commonwealth wage subsidy payments such as JobKeeper from states with hard border closures in a bid to ratchet up pressure on them.

“We’ve made commitments to JobKeeper and Jobseeker,“ he said. “There’s three and a half million Australians currently receiving support from the Commonwealth through those programs and they’ll continue to receive that support inside the framework which we’ve just announced through until March.”

“Of course we’ll review it as we go but of course, it‘s important to get the economy underway.”

Earlier, Ben Morton, who is Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, told the same program National Cabinet had not failed despite Western Australia and Queensland’s refusal to reopen their borders.

He said Mr Morrison wanted to work with willing states and those that weren’t convinced yet could decide to do it later at their own pace.

“Really it‘s up to those premiers in those states that have decided to sit back and not engage, for whatever justifiable reason to explain and be accountable regarding those decisions to the people in their own states.”

He poured cold water over claims that Mr Morrison‘s inability to get some of the states to dissolve hard border closures had been a failure of National Cabinet.

“I actually take it as a huge achievement. We‘re going to move forward, we’re going to put the reforms in place, if the willing states that want to work with us, we’re going to use that carrot to demonstrate those other states should follow.”

On Friday Mr Morrison conceded defeat on his push to set a national standard on travel restrictions by defining a coronavirus hotspot, but said he would “continue to exercise patience.”