Celebrities slip through COVID net

Several celebrities have been accused of avoiding hotel quarantine, including Nicole Kidman and Danii Minogue.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have come under fire. Picture: Instagram

Several Australian celebrities have been accused of avoiding strict quarantine rules, causing outrage in areas that have suffered a resurgence of the virus. Among those who have got around the directive are Nicole Kidman, the Oscar-winning actress, and Danii Minogue, the actress sister of the singer Kylie.

Under Australia’s measures to prevent people bringing in the infection, all overseas travellers must isolate for two weeks in hotels under government management. Those in hotel quarantine are confined for two weeks to their rooms, except for exercise sessions.

The rules also appear to have been eased for Kerry Stokes, allowing the 78-year-old media mogul to avoid two weeks in a hotel room on his return to Australia from America. Instead, he is in isolation at his Perth home.

Security at the government-managed hotels is overseen by police or guards, who patrol the corridors. Those in quarantine must pay up to dollars $3,000 for the hotels after being taken by bus under guard from airports.

Kidman, 53, and her husband, the musician Keith Urban, 52, were criticised when it became known this week that they travelled to their home south of Sydney after landing in a private jet from America with their two daughters. They will be able to roam their property and swim in the pool.

Derryn Hinch, 76, a radio broadcaster and former senator, led the complaints. He tweeted: “How come? How can people with names like Kidman and Minogue get to do their 14-day Covid quarantine at private residences and not in hotels.” Kidman and Urban returned to Australia to film a television series. They were allowed to travel to their home despite Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales, having insisted that there would be no exceptions from hotel quarantine for people arriving from overseas.

The published rules state that exemptions from hotel quarantine would be given only in very limited circumstances on grounds of health or compassion. Health authorities refused to say why the actress’s family were allowed to go to their home.

A week before Kidman’s arrival Minogue, 48, avoided a quarantine hotel in Queensland after landing in Brisbane. She was allowed to stay in what local reports described as a palatial home that she rented on the Gold Coast. The Queensland government’s chief medical officer insisted that the former talent show judge had taken regular tests for Covid-19 and was being “managed by an independent third party”.

Peter Khalil, an MP for Labor, said: “I can’t abide that celebrity culture . . . to get a different type of treatment, simply because you are . . . some sort of minor celebrity.”

Nine Newspapers published emails that revealed that a government minister intervened to help Mr Stokes, a large donor to both sides of politics, avoid hotel isolation. The emails, obtained under freedom of information, showed that Mr Stokes’s situation was discussed with officials in Western Australia.

A spokeswoman for Kidman said that the actress was following all the rules of isolation at her home. Minogue and Mr Stokes declined to comment when approached.

The Times