Queensland decided that the gate to travel to or from NSW will reopen to all residents of NSW, bar Greater Sydney, from 1am on November 3.
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Queensland decided that the gate to travel to or from NSW will reopen to all residents of NSW, bar Greater Sydney, from 1am on November 3.
Hundreds of thousands of New South Wales residents will be allowed to enter Queensland from Tuesday, however the state will remain shut to the 32 LGAs Greater Sydney, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Friday.
Queensland will also remain closed to Victoria that is a “strong border decision we have taken every step of the day”, Ms Palaszczuk said.
The announcement comes just one day before the Queensland election, in what’s gearing up to be an extremely tight race between Ms Palaszczuk and Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington.
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said prior to yesterday there had been four LGAs that had cases of unlinked community transmission from the last month, which worsened on Thursday.
“Yesterday… one of those new local cases they (NSW Health) could not link to any known clusters… the other three were linked to that case,” Dr Young said.
“NSW put out an alert for six different sites across the city for transmission. Based on that new information, I believe it’s important Queensland remains closed to those 32 LGAs in Sydney.
“Outside those LGAs, there’s not been any other cases in the past 28 days. NSW has done exceptionally well.
“Queensland will remain closed to those 32 LGAs, but as of 1am on November 3 the rest of NSW is open, and people can travel up into Queensland for any reason at all, and Queenslanders will be able to travel down… for any reason at all.
“They can travel via Sydney airport, but will need to travel through Sydney without stopping.”
It comes as Queensland recorded one new case, a returned overseas traveller in hotel quarantine.
Earlier, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the Queensland Premier she needed to play her part in getting the country moving again.
Ms Palaszczuk has previously indicated she hoped the border closure could be eased from the start of November but has said the decision would be pushed back if health advice showed it wasn’t safe to go ahead.
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young has routinely said the trigger to reopening to NSW was for the state to record no new unlinked cases of community transmission for 28 days.
However, the Courier Mail is reporting reported earlier on Friday it was most likely Dr Young would not open the border, instead expanding the border bubble zone in what would be a massive blow to the Queensland tourism industry and has sparked criticism from the Prime Minister.
“(My message to Annastacia Palaszczuk is) make decisions on the basis of health advice and be transparent about it,” Scott Morrison told 2GB radio on Friday morning.
“It’s hard often to get a clear steer on what’s behind these decisions.
“Australia is opening up again, we’ve committed to having Australia fully open by Christmas and we need to move towards that.
“We can’t stay stuck in neutral. We’ve got to get going again.”
Ms Palaszczuk said “there’s a range of things” the CHO looked at in addition to that, including the rate of sewerage testing, the rate of COVID-19 testing, and where the cases are.
Speaking on Today on Friday morning, Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said the premier needed to stop playing politics with the borders.
“I think for the premier it will be a political decision … This is a premier who played political games with the borders and with COVID for this whole election,” Ms Frecklington said.
NSW recorded no new cases of community transmission on Friday, but four new local cases on Thursday. NSW Health also issued a public health alert for an F45 gym in southwest Sydney after a positive case visited the gym 13 times between October 15 and 28.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has said as recently as Wednesday her Queensland counterpart needed to stop playing politics and open the border, even suggesting the Opposition Leader would have opened them “months ago”.
Ms Berejiklian said she was becoming increasingly frustrated by being “lumped in” with Victoria when it comes to Queensland‘s perception of her state’s COVID-19 risk.
“You can’t compare NSW to what Victoria’s been through. That’s why the Queensland (border) completely lacks ration, it doesn’t make sense. There is no reason why the Queensland border is there,” she said on Wednesday.
“I don’t think anywhere on the planet would be able to meet the 28-day benchmark (Queensland) gave us which I’ve never heard of.”