The Prime Minister and Premiers are becoming increasingly divided on the topic of border closures due to competing health and economic responsibilities in the wake of COVID-19, according to The Australian's Canberra Bureau Chief Joe Kelly.
The Prime Minister and Premiers are becoming increasingly divided on the topic of border closures due to competing health and economic responsibilities in the wake of COVID-19, according to The Australian's Canberra Bureau Chief Joe Kelly. Mr Kelly said the Newspoll released by the Australian revealed two major themes; firstly, the tightening of the political contest at the federal level and secondly, escalating conflict around hard border closures.
“[There was] overwhelming support for state border closures in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia," he said. “This is problematic for Scott Morrison and it’s problematic for one key reason and that reason is that his government is seen responsible for the economic response to the crisis and the premiers are being seen responsible for managing the health response to the crisis”.
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Queensland officials are 'playing politics with people's health and it's beyond low' | Sky News AustraliaLiberal Senator James McGrath says Queensland's Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Health Minister Steven Miles are playing politics with people’s health and it’s “beyond low”.\n\n“I don’t know what’s happening to Queensland,” Mr McGrath told Sky News host Paul Murray.\n\n“I don’t know what the answer is apart from change the government.\n\n“How can we live in a society when the premier and the health minister are playing politics with people’s health?\n\n“How can we live in a society when it’s okay for people to be given exemptions to cross the border if they know someone in the premier’s office or if they’re going to set up a boxing ring, but a mum who’s got twins in her, that she’s not allowed into Queensland?\n\n“It’s hard to talk about this without wanting to either swear or shout or just break down.”\n\nImage: News Corp Australia
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Attitude behind border bans is ‘abhorrent, unrealistic, and unfair’ | Sky News AustraliaThe path to living with COVID-19 requires exemplary tracing and high rates of testing, none of which involves hard border closures without the “flexibility to adapt” according to Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker.\n\nQueensland continues to close its borders to New South Wales residents, preventing some in the Northern Rivers area of the state from receiving much needed hospital care.\n\nPremier Annastacia Palaszczuk has maintained her strong stance against inter-state travel even for extenuating circumstances declaring Queenslanders can go to Queensland hospitals and people in NSW can go to NSW hospitals.\n\nMs Stoker told Sky News Queenslanders found this attitude to be “quite abhorrent” and the idea fellow Australians could not receive life or death treatment was “appalling”.\n\n“It’s not realistic, it’s not fair, and it lacks the flexibility that’s required to be compassionate to people who are ill,” she said.\n\n“It lacks the common sense required to keep our core businesses ticking along so that our economy doesn’t collapse.”\n\nImage: Getty
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PM working on a COVID-19 'hotspot' definition | Sky News AustraliaSky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says the Prime Minister and Health Minister will work with state premiers to come forward with a plan for a national hotspot definition which will allow borders to reopen.\n\n“It has been put to me the hotspot definition could come into effect when the number of new cases reach say 50 to 100 cases a day but ultimately it will be up to the states,” Mr Clennell said.\n\n“The states will have to agree to the number of cases that trigger a national definition of a hotspot. \n\n“If the states can't agree on it, and WA and Queensland are particular holdouts, the borders simply won't open to places like NSW, which will continue to hurt the national economy and cost jobs.'\n\nA northern New South Wales family has been grieving the loss of an unborn twin after Queensland's tough border closures delayed emergency treatment for the child's mother.\n\nConfusion over the state's border exemptions mean't the couple was unable to travel to Brisbane for care.\n\n“There was an absolute eruption in the Coalition party room on this one that saw many cases of hardship told by several backbenchers,' Mr Clennell said. \n\n“Speaking in favour of a lifting of border closures were Dave Sharma, Jason Falinski, Tim Wilson, Perin Davey amongst others. \n\n“An MP has told me the PM's office is getting 30 heartbreaking letters a day on this, including the story of a couple who wanted to travel from Melbourne to Brisbane to hold the hand of their dying son and it took a week and a half to get a permit.\n\n'As one Liberal MP said to me, at the start of the meeting Scott Morrison was saying that he did not like what was happening with the border closures but he understood why premiers in Queensland and WA were doing it because of how it played electorally. \n\n“But by the end of the meeting several MPs have said the Prime Minister has come around and was determined to do something to end these border closures.”\n\nImage: News Corp Australia
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Federation is the ‘underpinning of Australia’s prosperity’ | Sky News AustraliaLiberal Senator Amanda Stoker says Australians being able to trade with each other and move freely amongst each other is when “we do our best”.\n\nQueensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has maintained her strong stance against inter-state travel even for extenuating circumstances.\n\nMeanwhile, borders remain closed between NSW and Victoria, and South Australia and Victoria.\n\nPrime Minister Scott Morrison has recently come out against the continued border closures declaring it’s against the nature of Australia’s federation.\n\nSenator Stoker said the prime minister has been ramping up the pressure on the states to realise Australia does best when it doesn’t have “hard parochial attitudes”.\n\n“When we trade amongst each other, when we can move freely as a country, we do our best economically and socially,” she told Sky News.\n\n“That’s why we came together as six states and two territories to make a federation; it’s been the underpinning of our prosperity and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.”\n\nImage: Getty
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Sydney pub fined $10,000 for flouting COVIDSafe regulations | Sky News AustraliaA Sydney pub has been fined $10,000 dollars for breaching COVID-safe regulations three times in one week.\n\nThe Phoenix Hotel in Woollahra has been caught flouting social distancing rules and other safety measures multiple times. \n\nLiquor and Gaming, SafeWork NSW and NSW Fair Trading have carried out 896 inspections across the state over the past two weeks. \n\nAuthorities claim 31 hospitality venues were fined during the blitz.\n\nImage: AP
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'JobKeeper about preserving jobs not wages': Treasurer | Sky News AustraliaTreasurer Josh Frydenberg says Labor’s proposed amendment to the JobKeeper scheme, which would see a minimum payment of $600 doled out to all participants, would “cost jobs”.\n\n“If you were to force an employer to pay someone even though there was not the work for them, then ultimately that could lead to more sackings,” Mr Frydenberg told Sky News.\n\nThe Morrison government’s reforms to JobKeeper will extend the program beyond it’s original finish date in September and will maintain Industrial Relations flexible arrangements regarding duties, hours worked and location for workers.\n\n“If you’re coming off JobKeeper but your turnover is down between 10 and 30 per cent you’ll be able to maintain those flexible arrangements but you won’t be able to reduce the hours worked below 60 per cent as they were on the first of March,” he said.\n\n“It’s critical to understand that these are still distressed businesses, so they can’t keep all their employees fully employed because their doors are not necessarily fully open.'\n\nMr Frydenberg also told Sky News the significant issue for the government was preserving jobs not a certain wage.\n\n“It’s not about ensuring that the worker is getting exactly the same pay they were receiving previously it’s about ensuring that they can maintain their job,' he said.\n\nWhile Treasury forecasts indicate another 400,000 workers will lose their jobs by Christmas, the Treasurer said tapering the JobKeeper scheme was an “appropriate response” given businesses were already beginning to recover from lockdown measures. \n\nHe pointed out the JobKeeper subsidy was “the single largest program that Australia has ever undertaken” and would cost the taxpayer $101 billion dollars.\n\nImage: Getty
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