Even though Adelaide doesn’t yet meet the Commonwealth’s definition of a COVID hotspot (as pointed out by Andrew Clennell on Sky Australia today), the Queensland Government rushed to declare it one and to impose quarantine requirements on travellers from Adelaide, in stark contrast to the sensible wait-and-see approach of the NSW and Victorian Governments. Sky’s Andrew Clennell was right to call it a “knee-jerk reaction”. Possibly the Queensland Government is worried about its testing and tracing capabilities and its ability to get on top of a coronavirus outbreak if one were to occur. So it’s quick to shut down interstate travel at the first indication there may be any risk of COVID getting into Queensland, no matter how small.
Imposing quarantine requirements on travellers from Adelaide probably won’t matter a great deal to the Queensland economy via direct impacts, but it does reinforce the impression held by many in the business community that the Government is overly risk-averse on borders and doesn’t care much about the adverse impacts its decisions are imposing on industry. Many tourism operators will be worried Queensland won’t fully reopen to interstate travel by Christmas, and they’ll miss out on trade that would help them make up for heavy losses of trade earlier in the year (see my post from last Saturday).
Queensland runs the risk of becoming a hermit state if the COVID vaccine doesn’t end up being as effective or safe as we expect. Furthermore, the actions of our state government are undermining the Federation. We are treating fellow Australians as foreigners. We are inviting residents of other states to treat us as foreigners in the event of an outbreak of COVID here, or the outbreak of another disease sometime in the future.
The near future remains as uncertain as ever. We hope this Adelaide outbreak is contained and our Queensland Premier honours her alleged commitment to PM Scott Morrison to drop border restrictions by Christmas, although of course that decision may not be up to her, but instead up to our Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young. Hence, there’s no guarantee that interstate travel will be free and that families can reunite over Christmas.
Queensland Economy Watch 
Great post Gene, It’s a shame more articles like this aren’t provided by mainstream media, instead of the complicit replication of the Qld Govt media releases. In regards to business in Qld they are paying for their own complacencies, I have no sympathy for them. Where were the business ads during the election campaign calling for transparency and highlighting the impacts the closures were having, nothing but silence, business has no right to complain, this was always going to happen and it did nothing.
Thanks heaps for the feedback Glen. Re. business being relatively quiet, a few business leaders like Graham Turner have been very vocal, but generally I agree with you. I get the sense the business peak bodies worry that if they’re seen as being critical of gov’t they will cut out of the loop as they say.
The Main Stream Media are just lickspittles for Labour governments. They know those useless idiots are vindictive and forget no slight! This media is too stupid to understand how damaging these lock downs are and the governments wallow in their new found powers. We need to rise up and start showing these useless governments what they are doing is wrong alternatively let them keep ramping it up and sending Australia broke! Public servants and politicians get index linked pensions paid for by our grandchildren, until….