Australian state border restrictions

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s prayers have been answered with a company of Australian soldiers set to man checkpoints along the Qld-NSW border.

The Queensland Premier made the request for defence force to assistance with manning vehicle checkpoints following the massive COVID-19 outbreak in NSW where a record 633 positive cases, alone, were announced on Wednesday.

The 100-strong company will start assisting police from next week and news of the request being granted has delighted Ms Palaszczuk.

“The Premier has welcomed the federal government’s agreement to Queensland’s request, providing 100 soldiers to reinforce our border,” a spokeswoman from the Premier’s department said in a statement.

A spokeswoman from the office of Defence Minister Peter Dutton said troops would strategically located across the NSW-Qld border.

“Defence has received a request to assist Queensland Police Service with maintenance of Vehicle Conrol Points to restrict non-essential travel at strategic border locations,” she said.

The news comes after Ms Palaszczuk earlier warned that just one case in the state would lead to a snap lockdown, as they further tightened border restrictions with NSW.

 
I was under the impression Defence had categorically refused to man internal borders again after 2020. Wonder what changed. Political influence I suppose.
 
I was under the impression Defence had categorically refused to man internal borders again after 2020. Wonder what changed. Political influence I suppose.
I'm sure the Vic Premier will be on the horn now.

Does anyone remember if the NSW/Vic border had Defence personnel in 2020?

I guess NSW has reached Melbourne 2020 proportions now
 
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Does anyone remember if the NSW/Vic border had Defence personnel in 2020?
Most definitely did. And since refused to be involved. I was under the impression that all states had been told, if you want to man your borders, use your own police. ADF will assist with hotel quarantine, door knocking in cities and other such tasks to release state based resources, but not undertake standing at the border themselves.
 
Perhaps AP threatened the Feds that she would raise her own army?
 
Well this is more like it.
"Hideous” lockdowns and border closures can end by Christmas when South Australia likely hits an 80 per cent vaccination target, the state’s Covid-19 health chief says. In an exclusive interview, chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier revealed heavy restrictions were not part of her road map out of the pandemic but said mask use was here to stay."

She hopes to get to 80% earlier than December but it depends on supplies.
 
Well this is more like it.
"Hideous” lockdowns and border closures can end by Christmas when South Australia likely hits an 80 per cent vaccination target, the state’s Covid-19 health chief says. In an exclusive interview, chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier revealed heavy restrictions were not part of her road map out of the pandemic but said mask use was here to stay."

She hopes to get to 80% earlier than December but it depends on supplies.
Imagine recognising that a blunt-force intervention is "hideous" but still doing it.
 
Most definitely did. And since refused to be involved. I was under the impression that all states had been told, if you want to man your borders, use your own police. ADF will assist with hotel quarantine, door knocking in cities and other such tasks to release state based resources, but not undertake standing at the border themselves.

I think that changed now the PM is OIC Team Lockdown.

That advice was given last year when he was blasting the states for closing their borders. Now he's encouraging them to do so.

We're talking about small numbers though. No reason why they can't get contractors to do it (keeping in mind ADF are only used to plus up the numbers, there's always police there to do the actual enforcement).

I personally think it was a bit of a false lesson in Victoria's second wave not to use contractors. How many bouncers are out of work at the moment?
 
Hoping to travel interstate in the next few months from VIC, but with the number infectious in the community in VIC still going up things would have to change a lot for state border closures to end.
 
I have work in SA in October/November and I am really rating that as less than 50% likely to proceed at this point.
 
NT declares Sydney and Canberra airports as hotspots - essentially they are not sure how their case arrived as it doesn't match closely to anyone in the database.
 
NT declares Sydney and Canberra airports as hotspots - essentially they are not sure how their case arrived as it doesn't match closely to anyone in the database.
I am really negative about this development. It makes any movement at all pretty well impossible. I wonder if it’s jus5 the terminals, or the whole airport? That would impact on freight.
 
I'm just passing through MEL en-route for LST and the permit system has got messier. Because I was transiting, I applied for a transit permit from Adelaide to Launceston. Although this is what they wanted in the past, they've "enhanced" it and I should have applied for a permit to travel from a Green zone.
Apparently, entering with the transit permit would require me to quarantine. I can only think this a reaction to the Sydney guy who transited on his way to Launceston as I can't see much point in applying for a transit permit if you can't transit?! All seems a bit strange as I don't recall seeing anything on the website when I was applying and the permit doesn't say anything about quarantining. Possibly the Vic Health official got it wrong but they made me re-apply for a Green permit.
Totally pointless exercise as the information I entered was identical to the permit in my hand. I'm finding Covid is eroding my tolerance of stupid!
 

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