FLAP THOSE WINGS GOVT

IT is very disappointing to feel the lack of urgency emanating out of the halls of power in Brisbane for a Queensland-Gold Coast travel bubble with our beloved neighbours across the ditch in New Zealand.

In the latest excuse-ridden, limp-wristed hand-wringing dismissal of it into the toohard basket, visiting Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles told the Bulletin on Wednesday it was unlikely to happen any time soon.

Then he fobbed off the reason onto the Federal Government noting ultimately – given it was an international border governed by them – that it was their call and out of his and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s hands.

Well, technically, yes Minister.

But what about showing a bit more enthusiasm for lobbying the Feds on this side of the ditch and also those at the upper reaches of the New Zealand Government to get the travel bubble onto the top of the agenda.

As this newspaper has already argued this week, the hodge-podge of Europe is operating international flights engendering much needed work and tourism travel between countries under a “traffic light” system updated daily on what are green for go and red for no go zones when it comes to COVID-19. Surely if they can manage it, NZ and parts of Australia can look at the same even before the rest of Australia’s states are all open to each other.

NZ must be attractively eyeing up the potential pool of visitors it could attract from the Gold Coast – with its one active virus case remaining at last count (yes, someone in quarantine) – as much as the country’s tourism capital is eyeing the pool of Kiwis no doubt gagging to hit the sunny shores of this great city.

The health battle is being won in this part of the world and credit to the State Government for its role in that.

But the path to recovery will require a nimble, energetic and at times bloodyminded pursuit to make things happen.