Powers to stay unfettered for months in Queensland after Covid-19 vaccine rollout

Extraordinary powers given to Queensland’s chief health officer to lockdown cities and close state borders without oversight will be extended until 2022.

Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young wields extraordinary powers in order to control the spread of Covid-19. Picture: John Gass

Extraordinary powers given to Queensland’s chief health officer to lock down cities and close state borders without oversight will be extended until 2022, months after the vaccine rollout is expected to reach a critical mass.

Legislation before Queensland’s one-house parliament will continue powers given to the state’s chief health officer to limit, or respond to, the spread of Covid-19 until April 2022.

They allow the chief health officer to mandate mask wearing, force people into isolation and require businesses to collect contact tracing information and are due to expire on September 30.

The unfettered powers will be bestowed on an undecided ­bureaucrat, who will replace ­governor-in-waiting Jeannette Young later this year.

Dr Young’s replacement will be chosen by a three-person panel and appointed by the head of the health department. A spokesman for Premier Annastacia Palas­zczuk said she would have no involvement in the recruitment of the panel nor the appointment of the CHO.

At a public hearing on the legislation extension, Dr Young said the need for broad public health powers would “remain until a large proportion – at least 80 per cent – of the Queensland population has been vaccinated and the risk of widespread outbreaks has subsided”.

“Everyone should be able to have the opportunity to get vaccinated in October or November this year,” she added.

The Queensland Greens have proposed a dedicated parliamentary committee to oversee the use of the powers, chaired by a crossbencher or a member of the ­opposition.

“Extending the Covid-19 emergency provisions and ­powers makes sense, given we are clearly still in the throes of the pandemic as the botched vaccine rollout drags on, but to continue granting these extraordinary powers without any genuine, independent parliamentary oversight is shortsighted and undemocratic,” Greens MP Michael Berkman said.

“As more of us are vaccinated, we’ll be dealing with more complicated questions like vaccine passports and other modified restrictions, or how we deal with new Covid-19 cases once the ­vaccine rollout is complete.

“It is vitally important that the public knows the distinction between the health advice and ­political decisions made on the basis of that advice, Mr Berkman said.

Civil libertarians have also raised concern about the state’s public health emergency being drawn out until April 2022 – months after the population was expected to be vaccinated.

Queensland’s Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope proposed a December 31 deadline.