State of Origin war on hotel COVID-19 quarantine expense bill

Victoria to reimburse NSW for housing its residents, further isolating Queensland, which is refusing to pay a $27m bill.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: Dan Peled

Victoria will reimburse the NSW government for housing its residents in hotel quarantine, further isolating Queensland, which is ­refusing to pay a $27m bill amid a worsening row between the states about who should pick up the tab for border arrangements.

Hit with a total bill of $86m for thousands of interstate residents using the state’s hotel quarantine in the first six months of the coronavirus pandemic, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said Queensland would ultimately be judged “in the court of public opinion” for politicising the issue and refusing to pay its share.

“All the people who have worked so hard to get Australians back home and keep them healthy and safe in quarantine could rightly feel ripped off by this peculiar display,” Mr Perrottet said. “Ultimately, it’s the Australian public and the court of public opinion who will judge what is a fair, reasonable and responsible approach.”

Victorian government sources told The Weekend Australian that the state’s Treasurer, Tim Pallas, had signed off on a process to pay for residents in Sydney ­hotels over the number of NSW residents who had arrived through Melbourne. No final figure had been settled on by Friday.

But Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles has refused to pay what he calls the “ridiculous” bill and said the federal ­government should pick up the expense.

Mr Miles said the NSW bill covered thousands of arrivals from Queensland, some of whom had been away from Australia for a long time and had given the ­addresses of relatives.

He said 6058 people with ­addresses in NSW had arrived in Brisbane over the same period.

“The idea that states invoice each other based on what ­addresses people give when they ­arrive is ridiculous,” he said.

“The commonwealth is still happy to accept responsibility for the quarantine of a dog coming into the country, but not a person.

“If NSW really wants to go down this path, we could theoretically calculate the costs of their mishandling of the Ruby Princess and invoice them for that.”

The invoice figures cover a ­period from March, when the hotel quarantine system was first established, to September 30.

States agreed to cover the cost of their residents arriving in different jurisdictions at a national cabinet meeting, NSW says.

Mr Perrottet said his state was “acting in the national interest in accepting a greater number of people back into Australia than any other state”.

“With this has come not only the cost, but increased risk for healthcare workers, quarantine and security staff and the broader community,” Mr Perrottet said.

“We are more than happy to pay the cost of NSW citizens quarantined in other states.”

Senior Berejiklian government figures are particularly ­aggrieved that the number of residents from other states quarantining in Sydney hotels has prevented the rollout of plans to allow the return of international students, harming the economy,

 

Deputy NSW Premier John Barilaro told The Weekend Australian that “if Queensland cannot honour an agreement from national cabinet to pay for quarantine for their own citizens, how can the Olympic Committee ­believe what they promise for the 2032 Olympics”. “NSW will continue to do the right thing by all Australians, but my message to Queensland is stop playing State of Origin with families,” he said.

Of arrivals into Sydney ­between March 29 and September 30, 36,156 were NSW residents. There were 8638 arrivals with Victorian addresses, 7112 from Queensland, and smaller numbers from other states.

Victoria closed its quarantine scheme for part of that period.

There were 4991 who could not provide addresses because they had lived overseas for a number of years or because they were foreign nationals exempted to enter for specific reasons.

Mr Miles escalated the row with NSW on Thursday after he filmed himself ripping up an invoice from the NSW government for $30.1m.

That figure includes $2.7m in GST, which is not included in the total $86m figure that the NSW government invoiced other states this month.

Mr Miles had previously said Queensland would not pay the bill until the federal government agreed to the state’s proposal to build a national quarantine centre, including a facility in Toowoomba.

That facility would be built by Wagners, with flights to land at Wellcamp Airport, and ­requires federal approval.