Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a three-day lockdown for Greater Brisbane to start Monday afternoon and waited for the roars of outrage to echo through the suburbs … and waited and waited and waited.
The expected backlash from Queenslanders never came, for one simple reason. Nobody cares.
Nobody who isn’t going to feel it directly in their hip pocket anyway. Or who isn’t planning a wedding or engagement party or has a sick relative lying in hospital over the border.
Other than in those heartbreaking situations, it’s pretty much business as usual.
Scroll down for video
Passengers check in for flights out of Brisbane on Monday as Queenslanders flooded the departure lounge to escape the city’s three-day lockdown. Most of the Sunshine State couldn’t care less about the ruined holiday plans of other Australians, Mike Colman writes
The TV news producers were so desperate to find anyone who would badmouth the government’s decision to lock down Brisbane and impose restrictions on the rest of the state that one network had to go all the way to Cairns to find a disgruntled chef willing to talk.
And even then, he seemed a little confused by the whole thing.
Bad news obviously takes a while to travel up to North Queensland and it was left to the anchorwoman to break it to him that his stand-up cocktail party for 140 guests on Wednesday night would need some serious tweaking.
Which, coming as it does on top of the end of the Federal Government’s Jobkeeper payments, is undoubtedly upsetting.
As it is for the tens of thousands of Australians from outside Queensland who have been wooed by the nation-wide blanket advertising campaign urging them to head north for the Easter holidays.
Desperate for a reprieve after a year of COVID restrictions, they have taken advantage of cheap airfares and generous accommodation packages to book their getaways, only for 10 positive tests in 24 hours to throw their plans into disarray.
Ten positive tests in 24 hours have thrown travel plans into disarray. Pictured is the locked-down local government areas of Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich, Redland and Moreton Bay
While the initial lockdown is only for three days and the Easter break doesn’t officially begin until the following day, there is still a pall of uncertainty hanging over thousands of households across the country.
But will Queenslanders spare too much time worrying about the feelings of those people from New South Wales and Victoria who have had their bags packed and air tickets at the ready for weeks?
Probably not. They’re too busy worrying about keeping Queensland safe from COVID so they can continue to live in a bubble of safety and ease that is the envy of the rest of the country, and indeed the world.
Shoppers leave Woolworths at Newstead in inner-city Brisbane on Monday as the city was plunged into a three-day lockdown. TV news producers have struggled to find Queenslanders willing the badmouth the new restrictions
Obviously, holiday makers and hospitality workers aren’t the only ones affected by the threat of extended restrictions. As in past lockdowns, families face being separated, relatives won’t be able to get to the bedsides of sick and dying loved-ones, weddings and celebrations meticulously planned for months are at risk of being derailed.
Broadly speaking though, the majority of Queenslanders would seem to have taken a State of Origin attitude to those ‘outsiders’ who are angered by the Palaszczuk Government’s hardline approach.
‘We know we live in a place that is so good that you’re desperate to get up here for your holidays,’ they could be saying. ‘But that’s exactly why we don’t want you coming up here and risking wrecking our sweet set-up.’
It all stems from the way Premier Palaszczuk and her sidekick, chief health officer Jeanette Young, handled the pandemic first time around.
Greater Brisbane has been ordered into a three-day lockdown after a coronavirus cluster grew to seven cases with evidence of ‘significant community transmission’
If Palaszczuk said ‘I make no apologies for putting the interests of Queenslanders first’ once, she said it a thousand times.
For months she and the increasingly frazzled-looking Dr Young stood on the lawn outside Parliament House, stared down the lenses of a sea of TV cameras and played a straight bat that the late great Queensland batsman Ken ‘Slasher’ Mackay would have been proud of.
The Prime Minister urged them to open up the borders, the NSW and Victorian premiers all but declared war, but they stood firm – and won.
They kept the state all but COVID-free, got the NRL up and running, pinched the AFL grand final from under the Mexicans’ noses and scored a landslide victory in the State election.
Which is why right now the Queensland public at large is willing to go along with just about anything their Premier tells them. If she says they need to wear a mask while they go to the doctor or stock up on their groceries, so be it. If they can’t go to the gym until the restrictions are lifted, what’s a few days without a Bulgarian split squat or two?
And as for all holiday bookings that might have to refunded, they’ll soon be taken up by the cashed-up ex-pat Southerners who sold their modest three-bedroom, one-bathroom semis in Sydney and Melbourne for millions, and bought canal-front mansions in Queensland before the borders slammed shut last time.
Brisbane’s snap lockdown is blasted as ‘sheer lunacy’ as critics say it will cost economy $2billion – and bachelorette party in Byron Bay sparks fears of Covid return to NSW
- Flight Centre boss Graham Turner has blasted Brisbane’s Covid lockdown
- He said the decision to lock down was ‘sheer lunacy’ and would cost $2billion
- It comes as NSW authorities scramble after two infected people partied in Byron
- Anyone in NSW who visited Queensland capital since March 20 must lockdown
- Everyone in the Greater Brisbane area must lockdown until 5pm on Thursday
The boss of Flight Centre has blasted the decision to send Brisbane into a three-day lockdown and warned it will cost the economy billions of dollars.
Graham Turner, the co-founder of the travel giant, said it was ‘sheer lunacy’ to force residents to stay at home and claimed there was ‘no evidence’ the lockdown would help control Queensland’s coronavirus outbreak.
‘Locking Brisbane down will have a short-range three-day effect, it will cost $1billion to $2billion, but the impact will last longer, and just as domestic travel was coming back,’ Mr Turner told the Courier Mail.
‘(The lockdowns have) achieved nothing. There is no evidence it has achieved anything. We are talking billions of dollars here for a three-day lockdown.’
Other companies have called on the government to be stronger with the distribution of vaccines, saying the constant threat of lockdowns is not financially sustainable.
Queensland businesses are preparing for another tenuous period financially after the government closed all non-essentials for the three-day lockdown period.
The state’s travel sector in particular is expecting huge losses with the possibility of travel not being reinstated before the Easter long weekend.
It comes amid fears a coronavirus cluster in Brisbane, which grew to seven on Monday, could be spreading to NSW after two infected women attended a bachelorette party in Byron Bay.
The boss of Flight Centre has blasted the decision to send Brisbane into lockdown in a bid to control a coronavirus cluster (quiet street seen on Monday afternoon)
A nurse and her sister partied in NSW’s Byron Bay (testing site pictured) for a bachelorette party while infected with Covid
A nurse and her sister unknowingly had coronavirus while partying in the coastal town on the NSW north coast on the weekend spanning March 26 to March 28.
The pair visited a string of popular venues including the Byron Beach Hotel and The Farm.
NSW Health released an alert on Monday evening saying anyone that had visited the Queensland capital since March 20 must immediately self-isolate and not leave their house until Thursday at 5pm.
Residents of Byron Bay are being urged to be especially vigilant in monitoring their health and are encouraging anyone with even the mildest symptoms to get tested immediately.
A number of venues at the popular tourist destination have fallen under the immediate testing category, with anyone who attented the Byron Beach Hotel, The Farm, Mokha Cafe and Suffolk Beachfront Holiday Park told to immediately seek a test and self-isolate until told otherwise.
Ghanda Clothing, Tiger Lily, Black Sheep, Quicksilver, Suffolk Bakery and the Park Hotel Bottle Shop are also in the same category.
The relevant times for the enforced isolation period can be found on the NSW Health website.
The pair visited the popular Byron Beach Hotel on Friday March 28 between 7pm and 9pm (pictured) while positive infectious with the virus
Flight Centre co-founder Graham Turner (pictured) said there was ‘no evidence’ lockdowns had achieved anything
NSW Health say the lockdown will remain in place for residents who visited Brisbane since March 20 for the same duration as the Queensland mandate.
They will only be allowed to leave for essential reasons including food, medical care and exercise.
The state has also issued entry declaration forms from March 27 for people who have spent time in the Greater Brisbane area.
The forms are to help authorities track anyone who may be linked or exposed to the new outbreak of the UK strain of the virus.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the infected people have been out in the community and travelled to central Queensland and northern NSW.
To stem transmission, Brisbane, Logan, Moreton Bay, Ipswich and Redlands will go into a three-day lockdown from 5pm on Monday – an area with about 2.5 million people.
‘I didn’t sleep last night so I think I am very worried, I’m very concerned,’ Ms Palaszczuk told reporters.
‘But we’ve done it before, we’ve got through this together, and I’m sure that if everyone does the right thing we will be able to get through it.’
People with even the slightest of symptoms are being encouraged to seek a test immediately and self-isolate until further notice
Ms Palaszczuk said the lockdown would be reviewed on Thursday, ahead of the Easter holiday break this weekend.
Greater Brisbane schools and all non-essential businesses premises must close from Monday afternoon.
‘This will also enable our health authorities to get on top of the contact tracing,’ the premier said.
‘This is a huge job now that we have to do because we’ve got more of this community transmission.’
New South Wales residents who have recently returned from Brisbane must immediately go into a three-day lockdown
It is the second Greater Brisbane lockdown this year after an earlier shutdown in January.
Anyone who has been in Brisbane since March 20 will also come under the lockdown restrictions.
One of the cases travelled to Gladstone and Gin Gin from March 25 to March 27 and two cases visited venues in Byron Bay in NSW on March 26 and March 28.
The premier said face masks would be mandatory in Brisbane, and will need to be worn indoors throughout the rest of Queensland.
Thousands have attempted to leave Brisbane after the three-day lockdown threw Easter long weekend plans into disarray
All venues outside Greater Brisbane will only be allowed to host seated patrons.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young says four of the new cases are linked to two men in northern Brisbane and a Princess Alexandra Hospital doctor who tested positive.
Two cases are colleagues of a Strathpine man who tested positive on Friday night, while the other cases are a doctor, who tested positive on March 12, and her sister.
Dr Young said it was unclear where the transmission occurred and genomic testing on both latter cases was underway.
‘We now have significant community transmission,’ she said.
States and territories have also moved to restrict incoming travel from Brisbane and the state.
This week’s lockdown is the second in Brisbane this year after an earlier shutdown in January
Western Australia will close its border to the entire state of Queensland from 1201am (WST) on Tuesday.
Tasmania has shut its border to Greater Brisbane travellers, while South Australia will do so from 4pm (CST) and Victoria closes to Brisbanites from 6pm (AEDT).
Anyone from Greater Brisbane must isolate and get tested upon entering the Northern Territory and the ACT.
Entry declarations that ask for details of visits to venues of concern are required for Greater Brisbane arrivals, and NSW Health is advising against non-essential travel to the northern city.
