Steven Miles asks Federal Government for quarantine option

Queensland’s Deputy Premier says it’s time for the federal government to offer a regional quarantine plan, instead of ‘coming up with reasons’ why the state’s Wellcamp proposal is not an option.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles says the federal government should come to them with their own regional quarantine plan if they don’t like Queensland’s Wellcamp proposal.

Mr Miles said it was “not time to give up on Wellcamp” yet, despite it not complying with new Commonwealth requirements around tertiary hospital access.

But he said if the Morrison Government were going to keep “coming up with new reasons why it’s not good enough”, then they should put their own ideas forward.

“If they don’t like Wellcamp then come to us with an alternative,” he told the Queensland Media Club.

“Come to us with a defence property, or a suitable property that you think will work because at the end of the day, we’re doing the Commonwealth a favour doing quarantine.

“It really should be their job.”

Mr Miles said there was a “scan on possible locations” early on and that’s when Wellcamp was identified.

“The Commonwealth could propose other locations instead of just saying: ‘Oh we’ve come up with a new reason why Wellcamp won’t work’,” he said.

Mr Miles said he was on the original phone hook-up that planned the use of hotels as quarantine facilities and “they were not designed to be in place for 18 months”.

The latest transmission in hotel quarantine further proved the need for purpose-built quarantine facilities, he said.

Originally published as Steven Miles asks Federal Government for quarantine option