Protests set back Cape
Re-opening delayed by racism gatherings
CAPE York travellers itching to go bush may have to cool their heels until it’s known if any new COVID cases come from Cairns Black Lives Matter gatherings.
This is despite the federal grip over the Peninsula being released.
Today, in consultation with the Queensland chief medical officer, the Federal Government ends the biosecurity lockout of Cape York and hands control back to the state.
Tourism operators have screamed for the Cape to be reopened – voices in the Cook district, only a three-hour drive from Port Douglas, being heard the loudest.
Cooktown cafe owner Don Perkins said the lockout had been a “horror story”.
He said business owners were on the verge of mental breakdowns and others had forgone cancer treatment because
A it was too hard to get through the checkpoint.
“There has been no transparency in any of these processes. We are the last to find out anything,” he said.
“We have been extraordinarily forgotten. The thing that flies in the face of everything, is the unfairness of this.”
A frustrated Cook Mayor Peter Scott had spent the week in video conferences with state officials planning how the rolling
CAIRNS POST
ORIGINAL
A 12-PART SERIES HONOURING THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP US SAFE AT NIGHT back of restrictions would work.
“The indeterminate mess of everything – it’s bloody ridiculous,” he said.
Cr Scott said the most likely scenario was Cape York residents, except the Northern Peninsula, would be able to travel through the Mareeba, Tablelands, Douglas and Cairns shires, without the need for self-isolation.
Dependant on no more
OUT 21 JUNE
COVID outbreaks, July 10 has been mooted as the date for unrestricted travel.
Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch, critical of the way the lockout was handled by the state, said there was concern the reopening could be pushed back by a Black Lives Matter gathering of 3000 protesters in Cairns last Sunday.
“The state allowed the protests and are now punishing the business community by locking them up,” the MP said.
Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation executive director Gerhardt Pearson. urged caution when making decisions about reopening vulnerable indigenous communities. “Warren Entsch has gone out not caring about indigenous health,” he said.
“If they are lifting to the biosecurity and leaving the heavy lifting to indigenous communities they are furthering the risk to indigenous communities in the Cape and across Queensland.”