Regional Education Minister Andrew Gee is calling on the Queensland government to provide clarity and a formal declaration on the border exemptions for boarding school students from New South Wales and the ACT.
Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young granted travel exemptions to those students from NSW and ACT who had been separated from their families for many months due to the state’s strict border restrictions. The ruling applied to boarding students from areas with no coronavirus cases and will allow them to return home without having to go into mandatory hotel quarantine.
“But how come the Queensland government hasn’t come out and clarified exactly what the position is and actually made a statement on it? “My concern is that it’s the new politics of COVID border closures in that these children and their families are just pawns in a wider political game and for the purpose of trying to save the skins of certain state governments. “I think we just have to have a common sense, caring and practical approach on this, but it needs to be a unified approach.
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