NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has slammed Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk over her refusal to budge on border reopenings.
Berejiklian put pressure on other states and territories, except for Victoria, to reopen their borders and said South Australia and the Northern Territory have considered reopening their borders, ABC News reported.
“I’ve been extremely critical to the other Premiers and I’ll continue to be because I don’t understand why they’ve got their borders up against NSW,” she said.
“The rates of community transmission — touch wood — in NSW is very, very low, especially compared to world standards.
“If we’re going to live with this indefinitely or until there’s a vaccine, we need to be a bit more compassionate and a bit more sensible about what this is doing on a human level but also what it’s doing to our nation.”
This comes as NSW minister for health Brad Hazzard expressed his anger at the Queensland government after an NSW father was forced to pay for hotel quarantine while visiting his sick daughter in Brisbane.
ABC News reported Brad Jones was told to pay for his quarantine while visiting his daughter Charlotte, who has leukemia.
“I can only express my anger, my supreme anger, at the Queensland’s Premier’s decision which is in my view … is nothing more than base, loopy politics,” Hazzard said, according to ABC News.
“I’m appalled by what’s going on up there.”
The latest data from NSW health confirmed 9 new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours leading up to 8pm on 8 September, each was able to be traced to known cases or were a returned traveller.
Nearly all of Australia’s states and territories have agreed in principle to develop a plan to reopen the country by Christmas.
According to a media release circulated on Friday from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Western Australia is the only jurisdiction not to agree to the plan, which would see states and territories use the hotspot concept for travel between jurisdictions.
