Car-sticker exemptions to avoid police border checkpoints

Queensland authorities were scrambling late on Tuesday to ­devise a permit system to enable thousands of people to cross the border daily for work.

Peter and Jan Brophy from Casino cut their road trip short. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Queensland authorities were scrambling late on Tuesday to ­devise a permit system to enable thousands of people to cross the border daily for work as the state moved to a lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Police will activate RBT-like checkpoints on roads along the Queensland border at midnight on Wednesday to enforce the border shutdown, with police and other government officers set to meet arriving passengers at airports to demand they self-isolate for 14 days.

But it is the border between the Gold Coast and northern NSW — one of Australia’s busiest interstate thoroughfares, with tens of thousands of people crisscrossing every day — that is proving the most complex challenge for authorities in restricting and identifying “all but essential movements’’.

After Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the shutdown on Monday via Twitter, the state government was on Tuesday still trying to establish a way to identify people who needed to regularly cross the border and minimise the impact on the local economy. An estimated 10,000 people live on the Tweed coast and drive to the Gold Coast every day to work.

State Disaster Co-ordinator Steve Gollschewski said authorities were working on a permit system that needed to be finalised by midnight on Tuesday.

People exempted from the restrictions will include those delivering freight, emergency workers, those travelling to and from work or needing to attend court and seeking medical treatment.

Penalties and fines of up to $13,345 have been flagged for anyone who breaches the lockdown.

Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said he hoped to have a permit system set up that would involve people applying online for exemptions to cross the border.

It could ultimately involve a sticker placed on a car or truck.

“I am trying to find something really simple to be able to identify those cars that are able to come through, so that people can get through very quickly,” he said.

In a sign of the times, Ms Palas­zczuk issued an appeal unthinkable a few months ago by telling interstate visitors to stay away from the Gold Coast and the rest of the state. “People should stay in their own states, their own suburbs,” she said. “Do not go on holidays. Do not travel unless absolutely necessary.”

The lockdown will increase the economic pressure on the state, with tourism, hospitality and ­accommodation on the Gold Coast alone accounting for 75,000 jobs. Treasurer Jackie Trad announced $4bn in measures to help business, including payroll tax holidays, and confirmed the state budget would be delayed.

Among the first tourists affected by the lockdown were Peter and Jan Brophy, 72 and 68, who had planned a three-week tour of the state’s bushfire-­ravaged southeast to help small businesses there recover. After just five days on the road, they decided to turn around at the border. “We had planned on travelling around for a couple of weeks … but we now have to go home,” Mr Brophy said. Ms Brophy was more concerned about the effectiveness of border checks: “It is going to create a bottleneck.”

Additional reporting: Charlie Peel