Coronavirus: the great race home to beat the barricades

A Sydney family cut short their Sunshine Coast holiday to rush home before the Queensland-NSW border shut overnight.

Mathew and Claire Cagney with daughters Siena and Chloe at the Tweed Heads border marker on their journey home ahead of the border closure. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Mathew Cagney knows his family has been lucky.

“We could be the last people to visit Queensland for a family holiday for a while,” the father of two said on Wednesday, hours before the border closed indefinitely to “non-essential” travel in a bid to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Mr Cagney, his wife, Claire, and daughters Chloe and Siena, who live in the northern beachside Sydney suburb of Curl Curl, cut short their holiday to the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, to return home on Wednesday.

Instead of risking the confines of their packed pre-booked flight, the family decided to drive home, stopping near Coolangatta on the Gold Coast to mark the significant moment as they crossed the border into their native state.

“We’re lucky we got a holiday in before the end of it,” Ms Cagney said.

Roadblocks were on Wednesday night being set up at all entry points from Tweed Heads into Queensland ahead of the closure.

Anyone entering Queensland will be funnelled through three RBT-style police checkpoints and those without a valid reason for entry will be required to self-­isolate for two weeks.

Police said the closure would create “significant delays” on roads that are crisscrossed by thousands of vehicles every day.

According to Tweed Shire Council, about 8000 Tweed residents work north of the border and about 5000 Queenslanders work in the Tweed.

Among them is Hugo Szwec, a French national, who lives at a hostel in Coolangatta.

Mr Szwec, who has a working visa, is employed as a tree lopper for a Queensland business and ­estimated that half of his work was in NSW. He remained unsure on Wednesday as to how the border closure would affect his job.

“We work around Coolangatta, Surfers Paradise, Tweed Heads,” he said. “Maybe 50 per cent of my work is in NSW and 50 per cent in Queensland. But what will happen around here? Will they close half of Coolangatta? It’s a bit messy.”

As of Thursday, Mr Szwec’s regular amble up the bush track from Duranbah Beach and short drive along the Greenmount headland will no longer be allowed because the 500m drive through the rabbit warren of backstreets transects the state border.

State Disaster Co-ordinator Steve Gollschewski said the border restrictions applied to all travel to Queensland by air, sea, rail or road. “The community can help us by not trying to cross the border unless their travel is absolutely essential,” Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said. “We understand that people will be inconvenienced but these restrictions are being implemented to slow the spread of novel coronavirus.”

Hugo Szwec and Oscar Leclair hit the surf at Duranbah Beach ahead of the Qld-NSW border closing. Picture: Glenn Hunt

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

Penalties of up to $13,345 can apply to anyone who breaches the 14-day lockdown.

The snap decision on Monday by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to close the border with NSW left the government scrambling to ­implement an online exemption system to permit free travel ­between the two states.

Signs along the mostly traffic-free M1 highway from Brisbane to the Gold Coast warned motorists of the impending closure.

Close to half of the interstate flights arrivals were cancelled and accommodation providers said there had been mass cancellations in the wake of the border closure announcement.

Keri Freer was among the NSW residents to cross the border into Queensland for work. The Tweed Shire local works for a takeaway food business, which has shops in Kirra and Coolangatta.

When she first heard of the looming border closure, Ms Freer feared she would lose her job.