Coronavirus: States demand federal help for hotel quarantine

WA and Queensland are demanding federal support to supervise an extra 2000 Australians in hotel quarantine.

Scott Morrison, at BlueScope Steel in Port Kembla on Thursday, says the increase in returned travellers is ‘a decision. It’s not a proposal’. Picture: Simon Bullard

Western Australia and Queensland are demanding the Morrison government help supervise an extra 2000 Australians in hotel quarantine, warning people returning from overseas could not be “dumped” on their doorsteps without commonwealth support.

WA Premier Mark Mc­Gowan said Friday’s national cabinet meeting would be “interesting” after Scott Morrison said the increase of weekly international arrivals from 4000 to 6000 had been decided and was due to start next week.

His comments were made ­before any national cabinet agreement on how to accommodate the returned travellers.

“It’s a decision. It’s not a proposal,” the Prime Minister said.

“The commonwealth government has made a decision that those caps have been moved to those levels and planes will be able to fly to those ports carrying that many passengers a week.”

Under the Morrison government’s plan, announced by Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack on Wednesday, WA and Queensland’s hotel quarantine capacity would double to 1000 arrivals a week and NSW’s intake would increase from 2450 to 2950.

South Australia would take 600 international passengers.

Mr McGowan accused Mr Morrison of “bossing people around” and he had not seen the commonwealth “act this way ­before”. “Saying they’re just going to fly people in and dump them on our doorstep is not the way to conduct these matters,” the Premier said.

“If the commonwealth wants to send another 500 Australians a week to Western Australia from overseas that we then need to work on arrangements to quarantine, we will need significant commonwealth support to do that … It cannot be rushed, it cannot be haphazard.”

There are 52 Australian ­Defence Force personnel assigned to quarantine compliance roles at Perth Airport and a further 48 working in six Perth ­hotels.

That equates to one ADF ­employee per five returning ­passengers under existing ­arrangements, or one ADF ­employee per 10 international arrivals once the weekly cap is lifted to 1000.

A Defence spokeswoman said the department “stands ready to provide further assistance, as required”.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wants the federal government to do everything it can to bring the more than 26,000 stranded Australians home from overseas.

“Queensland is happy to take more of these arrivals and has some suggestions about where they might be accommodated, but the federal government will have to help, especially with supervision,” Ms Palaszczuk’s spokesman said.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce ­revealed the airline was talking to the government about subsidised international repatriation flights after conducting 100 such flights before June.

He said it would not be economical for Qantas to do the flights without government support and the ­increased caps on international arrivals was still not enough to resume commercial routes.

“The issue is we’re burning $40m of cash a week. We can’t put any services on unless we can cover the cash costs. That’s all about the survival of Qantas now,” he told ABC radio.