Covid: Premiers in call to ‘halve’ overseas arrivals

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews will push to temporarily halve Australia’s international arrivals at a coming national cabinet meeting.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in North Melbourne on Monday. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews will push to temporarily halve Australia’s international arrivals at a coming national cabinet meeting, declaring “locking some people out is better than locking everyone down”.

Amid lockdowns across four capital cities, Mr Andrews received backing from Queensland counterpart Annastacia Palaszczuk. As head of the state that has accepted by far the most overseas arrivals since the pandemic began, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has in recent days maintained Australia should continue to show compassion to those wishing to return home from abroad.

However, Ms Berejiklian revealed she had been pushing “behind closed doors” for weeks for increased vaccine supplies.

Mr Andrews said on Tuesday it was evident in Australia and across the world that “you cannot manage Delta outbreaks without significant restrictions”.

“The lockdowns and restrictions in place across the country right now are all a result of hotel quarantine breaches — which is why we need a national discussion about how many people we’re letting in,” he said. “Locking some people out is better than locking everyone down. We need a national approach to how we manage this new threat until we achieve proper vaccine coverage.”

Victoria and Queensland successfully called at Monday night’s national cabinet meeting for debate on the future of hotel quarantine. It is understood that is scheduled to take place at the next substantive national cabinet meeting in a fortnight.

“We have to make a choice between more people coming here or reducing those numbers for the next three months, which will make lockdowns less likely,” Mr Andrews said.

“I don’t think that’s a very difficult choice to make. The maths of that, the logic … the pain ratio. Now a lockdown of a whole city will hurt many more people much more profoundly than saying ‘okay, we‘re going to halve the number of people who can come home, for a three-month period’.

“It’s not easy. It’s not simple. No one will enjoy it. I don’t want more lockdowns. I want to do everything we can to avoid that.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the hotel quarantine system was “not the answer”, as she reiterated calls for a “massive reduction in overseas arrivals”, saying she would bring the issue to national cabinet on Friday. “Hotel quarantine is just not the answer. We need a massive reduction in overseas arrivals because the overseas arrivals are bringing in these contagious strains,” she said.

“The reason why: We are having lockdowns in major cities because the overseas arrivals are bringing the virus here. The risk is real … we need to contain the virus. We need to protect Australia. We need to protect Queensland.

“I raised it at national cabinet. The Victorian Premier raised it at national cabinet.

“There’s another meeting later this week of national cabinet. We’ve got to act now. That is a national issue. We should be utilising Howard Springs.

“The federal government has control of that. They can do that immediately to alleviate the pressure that you see the states are under at the moment and it’s a lot of pressure that states are under.

“The hotels are full or nearing maximum capacity and they are not meant to fight infectious diseases, and we’re seeing now that even in Covid wards, it is so hard to contain this virus. This is highly infectious.”

Ms Berejiklian said she had been pushing for increased vaccine supplies for weeks.

“I’ve made these points very clearly in national cabinet behind closed doors, and more publicly yesterday,” she said.

“I feel that’s what we need to do to get these jabs in arms.”