States poised to slam shut borders

Queensland and Victoria are considering closing their borders to NSW as the state’s Covid-19 outbreak grows.

Victoria and Queensland are considering setting up back hard border closures with NSW.

Queensland and Victoria are considering closing their borders to NSW as the state’s Covid-19 outbreak grows and health authorities grapple with concerns some Sydneysiders aren’t complying with public health orders.

The threat of longer, tougher border restrictions has business and tourism leaders concerned about ongoing decimation of consumer confidence.

Australia’s tourism industry is faced with a choice of “bad or very bad”, Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said.

“Either borders are closed, we lose business but can maintain a more relaxed environment here in Queensland, or we have permeable borders but more drastic social distancing measures,” Mr Gschwind said. “The brief lockdown in Brisbane and more extended lockdown in Sydney have caused enormous economic hardship in our industry and it is becoming far more difficult to recover from these impacts the more often they occur.

“We need a long-term national solution, we need to get our vaccination rates a lot higher so we can do away with these lockdowns altogether.”

NSW recorded 44 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. Of those, 29 spent time in the community while contagious.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed tighter border controls were being considered, but would not say what would trigger a return of hard blockades along the state’s southern border.

“I do not want to speculate, so I just want to make sure that we are monitoring it over the next week and see what actions the NSW government take,” she said.

“The eyes of Australia are on Sydney, the epicentre of the Delta strain at the moment.

“Our biggest concern is if that is not contained and brought under control, it will spread right throughout the country.”

State disaster co-ordinator Steve Gollschewski, who heads Queensland’s border regime, said police could reconstruct the border blockade in one to two days.

“We are monitoring it very closely, the decision by government about whether we go harder in the next few days or into next week will depend on what happens in NSW,” he said.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said the state’s border status was reviewed daily and authorities would not hesitate to take further measures if needed.

He said the 44 cases in NSW represented the highest daily number of community-acquired cases since the end of Victoria‘s second wave.

“What it does indicate is the growing seriousness of the matter,” Mr Foley said.

Victorians returning from holidays in parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia have been granted a reprieve from test and isolate requirements, with restrictions in a string of locations set to be downgraded on Saturday night.

The news comes ahead of school resuming after the holidays from Monday.

From 11.59pm on Saturday, Brisbane, Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast will be downgraded from a red to an orange zone, meaning returning Victorians will have to isolate only until they receive a negative test result, rather than quarantining at home for a fortnight.

Queensland last month followed Victoria’s decision to lockout travellers from Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Shellharbour in NSW as the Delta strain began to surge.

University of Queensland virologist Kirsty Short said border closures had helped Australia maintain low infection rates throughout the pandemic.

“The only time border closures are not effective is when you implement them too late and you already have virus seeded in the community,” she said.

Dr Short said shutting off to larger parts of NSW would be helpful if there was virus spread into regional parts of the state.