Scott Morrison chooses Labor seat for quarantine hub

Scott Morrison has rejected claims his push to build a new quarantine hub in a Labor-held seat is politically motivated.

The Prime Minister has offered to pay for a purpose-built facility at an army barracks in Brisbane. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMO

Scott Morrison has rejected claims his push to build a new quarantine hub in a Labor-held seat is politically motivated.

The Prime Minister has offered to pay for a purpose-built facility at an army barracks in Brisbane, sounding the death knell for the Palaszczuk government’s Wellcamp plan near Toowoomba.

In a one-and-a-half page letter to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, seen by The Australian, Mr Morrison said the Wellcamp proposal “does not meet some key requirements” and proposed Damascus Barracks at Pinkenba, near Brisbane Airport, instead.

Ms Palaszczuk has been lobbying for the Toowoomba quarantine centre to be built in Groom, the second safest federal Coalition seat in the country, since February.

Wellcamp was killed off on Friday, as was an earlier pitch to use a mining camp near the central Queensland city of Gladstone, in the vulnerable Coalition-held seat of Flynn.

Mr Morrison’s preferred site is in Wayne Swan’s old seat of Lilley, now held by federal Labor backbencher Anika Wells, and is in the state LNP seat of Clayfield.

LNP operatives do not think the party will win Lilley, last held by the Coalition in 1998.

Dr Paul Williams, a political scientist and senior lecturer at Griffith University, said a quarantine centre is similar to a dump, prison or major highway – people agree they are needed, but don’t want it built near their homes.

“It is like sports rorts in reverse,” he said.

“If there is pushback on Pinkenba, they think ‘oh well, we likely won’t win Lilley anyway so we will wear that damage’,” Dr Williams said.

“NIMBY (not in my backyard) politics can be very potent, particularly for marginal governments.”

A spokesman for Mr Morrison said the barracks site, backed by the Australian Medical Association, was chosen “due to proximity to Brisbane Airport, proximity to a tertiary hospital, size and availability of land”.

Ms Wells said she had spoken to residents close to the site who thought “it seems like a logical spot, as long as the appropriate safeguards are put in place”.

“The government has just dropped this on residents without any consultation,” she said.

Home to Scott Morrison’s “miracle” election victory in 2019, Queensland remains crucial to the Coalition’s fragile one-seat majority. Of the state’s 30 federal seats, the LNP holds 23.

Dr Williams said after the landslide 2019 win in Queensland, the Coalition would be focusing efforts on holding all its seats.

“It is very perilous for the Morrison government,” he said.

“They will be throwing everything and the kitchen sink to sew up Queensland and will be making sure they do not do anything to offend, especially outside Brisbane.

“It is (so) marginal that every vote in every seat will count and the Coalition obviously won’t be leaving anything to chance.”