Queensland stands firm on cabinet’s border push

A FRACTURING national cabinet set a Christmas goal to reopen most of the country but junked its consensus model as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared she would not be “intimidated” over border restrictions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed Western Australia had cut itself adrift from the other jurisdictions which reached “in-principle” agreement on a plan for reopening and to use a “hot spot concept” to guide border decisions.

Ms Palaszczuk had entered yesterday’s meeting along with WA vowing not to be intimidated into relaxing its hardline border stance.

She rejected increasing criticism of her government’s hard border closure, insisting she would not change course “any time soon”.

The Premier revealed the increasingly strident attacks over her handling of the borders was “relentless” and “intimidating” but she was being sustained by emails and handwritten cards of support.

Victoria ........................ 2060 NSW .................................. 165 Queensland ........................ 25 Western Australia ................ 2 Tasmania ............................. 0 South Australia .................... 0 ACT ....................................... 0 Northern Territory .............. 0

ACTIVE CASES

The anticipated showdown over borders in national cabinet, led by Queensland and WA, forced the end of the consensus decision-making after almost six months of unity.

However, Queensland eventually agreed to the drawn-out reopening timeline, with all borders except WA’s due to open by Christmas and leaders trying to reach agreement on a definition for hot spots.

Mr Morrison said creating hard borders had unintended but sometimes “very cruel” outcomes.

Taking a thinly veiled swipe at Ms Palaszczuk’s recent controversial comments that “in Queensland we have Queensland hospitals for our people”, he said his primary concern was ensuring everyone could access medical treatment.

“Australians should be able to access a hospital in whatever state it’s in because they’re Australian hospitals,” the Prime Minister said.

He said acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly had provided a definition of what a COVID hot spot was that would make states’ decision-making more transparent when applying the term to justify border closures.

“We have provided a clinically based, scientifically based definition of what a hot spot is in Australia,” he said.

“And where states are moving to make different decisions on different criteria, I think it’s only reasonable … that people understand why [states] would be taking a different assessment.”

Under the draft commonwealth definition, a hot spot would be declared in a metropolitan area following three consecutive days with at least 10 new cases.

A regional area would become a hot spot after three consecutive days recording at least three cases.