Wagners detail how their Wellcamp quarantine hub proposal would work

Toowoomba’s Wagner family says a COVID quarantine hub next to the Wellcamp Airport is “the only safe way to treat this virus”. Here is how it will work.

John Wagner says his family’s proposal to the State Government for a quarantine hub for returning travellers adjacent to Wellcamp Airport is “the only safe way to treat this virus”.

The hub would work like this: the Wagners are proposing a 1000 room accommodation facility, with 300 staffrooms, constructed of concrete and demountable buildings, to the north of the airport runway.

Mr Wagner said all staff would work on site and stay on site, and the proposal included a testing facility.

International flights would land at Wellcamp Airport, passengers would disembark directly onto dedicated buses, and three minutes later they’d arrive at the accommodation facility.

“They don’t have any interaction at all with the public and no interaction at all with my staff,” Mr Wagner said.

Under the proposal, customs and immigrations would be handled at the quarantine facility.

“They get cleared for customs and immigration and they go straight to their room and they don’t leave there until 14 days later,” he explained.

The rooms will cater for singles, couples, and for families.

They all have their own individual airconditioning units and every room has fresh air and sunlight, Mr Wagner said.

“We think that we can cater for mental health. There will be some smoking rooms so people that smoke will have a balcony to be able to go out on, and we believe that we can have a facility that will have good ambience, heavily landscaped, and feel good,” he said.

“And it will be the safest way we can quarantine these people.

“At the moment they get quarantined in Brisbane over five or six different hotels – the reality is people can’t keep track of them.

“With this facility, every entry and exit is CCTV monitored and the perimeter fence is CCTV monitored, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

The proposal would create 300 new, ongoing jobs for Toowoomba and a further 150 jobs off-site supplying food and other services.

Through the construction it would employ about 400 people.

When asked how quickly the Wagners believed they could get the facility up and running, Mr Wagner said they could have the first 500 rooms up in about six weeks.

“And then we just keep building until we’ve built it out. Within two and a half months we’ll have the whole thing constructed,” he said.

Mr Wagner said the first 500 demountable rooms were already in Toowoomba, ready to be put into place.

“It’s just power, water, sewerage. You know how we work – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until its done.”

Up until now there has been minimal detail on the proposal, which was announced by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday after a meeting of National Cabinet.

The lack of detail around the proposal concerned Toowoomba residents, who were worried the proposal could see COVID-19 escape into the Garden City.

“We’ve got a lot riding on this if it doesn’t go well,” Mr Wagner said.

“We’ve looked at every single aspect of what we need to do to keep the community safe and we believe we have got that.”