Premier rebuffs flak over COVID hub plan ‘filled mostly with pictures’

Negotiations between the Prime Minister and Queensland’s Premier over a 1000-bed quarantine centre remain deadlocked, with Annastacia Palaszczuk rebuffing Scott Morrison’s claim the state had not provided enough information as “ridiculous”.

In late January, the state government approached Queensland billionaire John Wagner to put forward a proposal to build a demountable camp near his company’s Wellcamp Airport on the outskirts of Toowoomba, in the state’s south-east.

Almost four months ago Ms Palaszczuk and Mr Morrison tasked their departments to work out the details for the centre, with Mr Wagner offering to fund the construction.

The Queensland government said construction was being held up by the Commonwealth, which needed to give approval for international repatriation flights to land at the regional airport.

Mr Morrison has repeatedly called for more detail from the Queensland government before saying whether he would support the plan.

On Friday he said the Queensland proposal was 15 pages long, filled mostly with pictures and maps and contained no information about how much the facility would cost to build.

The Prime Minister would not say what specific information the federal government needed to give the project the green light.

“They [the state government] know full-well what that is because we have asked them that on numerous occasions,” he said.

“They know what it is and I will leave it with them.”

Deputy Premier Steven Miles had previously said the state “supplied extensive plans on this proposal”.

Ms Palaszczuk said approving the facility was a “no-brainer” and she could not “understand why the federal government won’t sit down and be constructive on this”.

She said the suggestion the state had not provided enough information was “ridiculous”.

“There have been ongoing discussions with the departments, I am not going to get into this slanging war,” she said.

“I have actually spoken to the Prime Minister when he came to Queensland ... we sat down and talked about the opportunities we would present, and he said ‘let’s get the departments working’ and that is exactly what we have been doing.

“The departments are working so co-operatively together because they know this is a good project.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the cost of building the facility was commercial-in-confidence.

The deadlock came as the Premier defended why she and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young had not received their coronavirus vaccinations, despite both being entitled to in phase 1b of the rollout.

Ms Palaszczuk said she would speak with her doctor about receiving the vaccine and would get a flu shot next week.

“A lot of people are getting their flu shots first because we are coming into a flu season, so I will be doing that and then getting my COVID vaccine,” she said.

“Dr Young is happy to wait her turn just like everybody else. She is not in the vulnerable category like other people are, so she will get her vaccine at the appropriate time.”

Mr Morrison encouraged “all Australians, particularly those over 70, to go and get their vaccination this week”.