FRUSTRATION BOILING OVER

THE anger of the Gold Coast small business and tourism operators is reaching boiling point on the ongoing Queensland border closure.

And it is entirely understandable. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, citing plenty of active cases and community transmission still not completely ruled out in NSW and Victoria, is digging her heels in on maintaining the border blocks.

She likes to also argue many other states around Australia have maintained the same position.

But that is irrelevant — the Gold Coast and Queensland are not the same as those other states and the reliance on visitation is more critical, particularly for the Glitter Strip which is so far counting the cost to its $6 billion-a-year tourism economy at $4 billion plus.

Then there are the glaring inconsistencies. The Prime Minister is starting to become increasingly incredulous at the notion Australians might end up being able to take trans-Tasman holidays to New Zealand before they can visit the Gold Coast.

The deputy federal health advisor, who as more initials after his name than most university boffins, has said he can’t understand state border closures.

To give Ms Palaszczuk her dues she has come to the Gold Coast, the first region she has visited for an entire day since the unprecedented restrictions aimed at slowing the pandemic kicked in, and listened first hand to the pain of those at the coalface.

She is understood to be considering relief that will become much clearer at the weekend but the border block being removed sometime in July remains, in her words, “unlikely”.

What has really shocked the Gold Coast business community is Mayor Tom Tate – who has a strong reputation as being probusiness, pro-development and open to taking the risks that allow entrepreneurial spirit to flourish – has fallen in behind her on the border block. He’s the one person they were expecting to challenge her stance on that but has not done so.

Cr Tate can not be faulted for his consistency nor no doubt his work ethic since the virus took hold and the ground started constantly shifting under everyone’s feet.

And he will be as frustrated at the devastating border block as any struggling operator.

But he has generally stuck to following the health advice, taking some tough decisions so far to close beaches when people started acting too irresponsibly and also shutting down beachfront car parks. Such measures have since been reversed.

But still the border block remains. It is now a national controversy.

It has fallen to One Nation’s Pauline Hanson to champion small business by giving an ultimatum to the Premier to lift the border block or face a High Court constitutional challenge.

This newspaper was told by some city luminaries yesterday one theory in play is the “unlikely” July border reopening may be fluid and it could actually be something that behind the scenes is a possibility.

Sooner or later, the economic devastation and clamps must override the perceived risks of a virus whose curve has been flattened as society was asked to do.