STATE OF CONFUSION

WELCOME to Queensland. Welcome to our nightmare. The border is supposed to reopen today. And so it will, but not to Victorians, meaning the barricades remain up and police are expected to enforce even tougher restrictions.

So life looks set to be harder for longsuffering residents around the border who were looking forward to today, thinking they would be able to take their children to school easily once again, or go to work without border checks, or access health care or to take goods to market. They are all part of the Gold Coast-Tweed which despite Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s thinking, is one community.

Earlier this week she said there would not be the “chaos and confusion” of last Friday, when changes to border permits caught everyone off guard and caused traffic snarls. Does the Premier seriously think today will bring little more than minor delays as police check carloads of people and demand to see “proof” they have not been in Victoria?

Victoria has locked down its capital city. NSW has closed the border with Victoria and is gearing up to target any new cases. But yet again, Ms Palaszczuk has chosen the Gold Coast-Tweed as her frontline.

A better plan must be found. Either that imaginary line is scrapped altogether or the states agree to shift it south, if only temporarily in cases such as this. Checkpoints have to be somewhere other than in the middle of what is effectively a single city. Perhaps the Tweed River? Our preference would be even farther south away from large population centres.

No chaos this time? Given the problems we had yesterday getting answers to how locals are expected to go about their lives, and with police warning of cars banking up 20km at the checkpoints, we beg to differ.