471 days after first going up, police say good riddance to Queensland border checkpoints

AFTER 471 days the border barricades between Queensland and NSW are coming down and hundreds of police will be back in the community.

On the six checkpoints across the border, police have intercepted 2.5 million vehicles and turned around 25,000 of them, according to Gold Coast District Acting Chief Superintendent Rhys Wildman.

He said inside the vehicles, 34,000 individuals were turned around across the 22 months.

“As the premier highlighted yesterday, only two times in history have the NSW and Queensland border been closed.

“That’s in 1918 with the Spanish flu and in 2020 to 2022 for Covid. It has been an extremely challenging environment for business, the community and the police.”

Supt Wildman thanked the community for their co-operation and said many services including Queensland Ambulance Services, Queensland Fire Service and the Gold Coast City Council helped keep the state safe until vaccination rates met the state government’s target.

He said in the 22 months police handed out 818 notices to appear and arrests, and 3,571 investigations were completed in relation to entering Queensland.

Acting Senior Sergeant Trent Keid helped manage and supervise border operations involving 192,000 hours of policing over 471 days.

All borders will be removed by 5am Sunday and he said it was a great feeling for the operation to be completed.

Officers came from all over Queensland including Cairns and Mt Isa to help with the operation.

“Road Policing, Highway Patrol and Gold Coast Rapid Action Patrol have been on the border since the beginning dealing with the emotional people coming across and dealing with the changes. They’ve put in a hard effort,” he said.

“Along with the external operators who’ve helped from Brisbane, it’s been a good experience. “The camaraderie between the teams has been excellent. The public coming across the border have been compassionate and understanding.

“Sometimes it was quite difficult. Some of the officers worked 10 hour days and were away from their families.

“We had a lot of officers staying back to do overtime, especially at the moment to cover sick leave.”

The VOCO Hotel said goodbye to its last quarantine guests on Friday before finishing up as a hotel quarantine.

One quarantine hotel still remains on the Gold Coast according to Sup Wildman, who said the operation had run for 655 days with 25,500 people going through hotel quarantine on the Gold Coast.