Border clampdown unites Tasmania

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein and Health Minister Sarah Courtney in Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

In Tasmania, blighted by decades of bitter conflict over land use, consensus is rarer that a Greens sticker on a logging truck.

And yet the island state came close to it on Thursday, with a collective decision to pull up the drawbridge to keep out the coronavirus crisis.

Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein had spent days batting off the idea of imposing 14 days of self-isolation on mainland visitors and Tasmanians returning from interstate.

It was a losing argument. After all, what was the logic in forcing Kiwis and other overseas travellers to self-isolate for a fortnight, when New South Welshmen could waltz around as they pleased? New Zealand had less than 30 COVID-19 cases as of late Thursday; NSW 265 and rising.

Tasmania has not closed its borders. Essential personnel, including health workers and freight handlers, are exempt from the new requirement.

More controversially, so too are Tasmania’s federal MPs, according to the Premier’s office. No one, it seems, can hold Jacqui Lambie.

The 14-day isolation requirement for all arrivals is the right decision. It is brave. It is full of risk. And it will have huge consequences for tourism, which — thanks to Dark Mofo — had in recent years become a year-long industry.

Passengers line up to hire cars at Hobart airport. Getty Images

This winter will be different; bleak for many. Perhaps a throwback to the days before the state was transformed by the booms in tourism, the arts and the “whisky and wasabi” sectors of food, drink and quality agricultural products.

But the move by Gutwein has united a worried island, if only momentarily. His actions are backed by Labor, the Greens, peak business groups and even by some of those tourism businesses that will suffer most because of it.

The measure is unlikely to prevent Tasmania suffering community transmission of the virus. The current limits on testing mean the 10 confirmed cases are unlikely to give the full picture.

But by limiting the flow of arrivals from stricken mainland states, the island has a better chance of weathering the storm and emerging from the gloom sooner than it otherwise might.