Queensland will introduce a hard border with NSW once again amid a coronavirus outbreak on Sydney’s northern beaches, Anastasia Palaszczuk has announced.
Ms Palaszczuk revealed the measure on Monday afternoon after the NSW Government recorded another 15 new cases linked to the growing Avalon cluster.
The Premier said the government was reimposing strict road blocks between the states to stop border dodgers who were “doing the wrong thing”.
Since border measures were reintroduced on Friday, Queensland Police have intercepted and turned back 81 people and placed 112 into quarantine.
Anyone enter Queensland from NSW will require a permit to cross the border via road or air, while anyone who has visited a declared hotspot in the last 14 days will be turned back.
The declared hotspots include greater Sydney, the Central Coast, Illawarra-Shoalhaven, and Nepean Blue Mountains.
The only people who will still be accepted after visiting a hotspot are Queensland residents, those moving to the state or who need to enter to fulfill shared parenting arrangements, obtain essential health care or to provide support to a person obtaining health care.
But Ms Palaszczuk said there had been cases of people crossing into Queensland without permission, which sparked the need for “swift action”.
Barriers will be rolled out throughout Monday afternoon with the hard border, that will see police check the declaration pass of every car that tries to enter, to be fully in place from 6am on Tuesday morning.
“What we are seeing is that people are now reaching (Queensland) and being turned around, so there will be a hard border closure which will be going in place,” she said.
“By 6am tomorrow it will be back to the strong border measures that we have seen in Queensland, that have kept Queenslanders safe.”
Ms Palaszczuk said all it took was a “couple of people” to breach protocols while infected for the virus to spread in the Sunshine State again.
People who break the new rules or include false information on their border passes face a fine of $4003.
State Disaster Coordinator Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said flying was the preferred method of entry into the state.
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said there had been 237,000 border permit applications lodged since Friday, and 500 people have been placed in quarantine.
“Our concerns are the red orders. I am briefed that even today with not harder closures but checkpoints, we are seeing delays of up to 75 minutes and heavy traffic,” he said.
“During the period we have been doing random intercepts, we have turned around 81 persons and placed 112 into quarantine and that was up to about 10.30am (Monday).
“What is concerning as a number of those persons intercepted were displaying incorrect … or no passes at all and were making it very clear they wanted to meet with family for Christmas purposes.
“You can’t give the community confidence we are picking everyone up as they are coming across the border, hence the need to move to a harder border closure.”
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said it was “disappointing” that the border system police had tried to implement that relied on the” integrity and honesty” of people had been abused.
