Queensland today opened its border to all of regional New South Wales, but its borders remain closed to people from Sydney.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the national cabinet are aiming to have all state borders open by Christmas:
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is refusing to budge on opening the state’s borders to 5 million Sydneysiders…
Ms Palaszczuk attributed Saturday’s election victory – where Labor recorded a 5 per cent swing and looked set to pick up two more seats – to her government’s decision to keep borders closed.
On Sunday, Ms Palaszczuk pointed to European lockdowns to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, saying Queenslanders wanted to “protect their lifestyle”.
“At the end of the day, Queenslanders just want to be safe,” she said.
“This is the lifestyle that Queenslanders want. What’s happening around the world is they are going into lockdown. When you go into lockdown there is no economy,” she said
“We are the envy of the world and I want it to remain that way”…
Health Minister Greg Hunt said states and territories needed to get moving on reducing border restrictions now that the coronavirus cases were under control.
Mr Hunt said the Morrison government wanted all borders down by Christmas, an aspiration agreed to at the national cabinet.
“As confidence is built, we want to see those borders opened as quickly as possible,” Mr Hunt said on Sunday.
“We’re now in the position where we’d like to see NSW and Queensland be free movement between the jurisdictions.
“Once everyone is comfortable that Victoria does have its contact tracing to gold-standard level, then I think we’ll see a single national bubble.”
Keeping QLD’s border shut served Annastacia Palaszczuk well at last weekend’s election, delivering a strong victory. However, with the election having came and gone and electoral risk now gone, there is no excuse not to open up to both NSW and Victoria.
Community transmission has been almost eliminated across both NSW and Victoria:
And active case numbers have cratered to only 48 in NSW and 38 in VIC:
The only reason for QLD not to open up is political.
