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Employer organisation the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) is calling for clarity on Queensland’s border reopening timetable, saying there needs to be an end to ‘vague promises’.
Rebecca Andrews, Queensland Head of the association, called today (12 October) for the State Government to end the conflicting messages on the reopening of the borders. This was for the sake of the well-being of the Queensland community and its business sector.
“Talking vaguely of a Christmas reopening schedule and then upping the ante on vaccination targets is far from the circuit-breaker announcement that the Government needs to deliver to encourage people to get the jab,” she said.
“Queensland businesses are facing ruin and our own people are languishing as exiles, locked away in other states from their families and friends.
“This situation needs to come to an end. [It] requires decisive leadership that can only come from making a clear reopening announcement and then sticking to it.”
According to the Ai Group, vaccination coverage is what will make Queensland safe in the longer run, not the false sense of security provided by borders closed to outsiders.
“We need an unequivocal statement from the Premier, backed up by health authorities, that the state border barriers will be removed on the Monday after the state reaches 80 percent vaccination coverage of all of those eligible to get the jab,” Andrews urged.
“If this occurs, the community will have greater confidence to vaccinate in much larger numbers.
“We cannot accept a situation where our state’s future is held hostage to the hesitant and the anti-vaxxers,” she said.
Andrews believes there is a compelling case for the state to re-join the nation for both compassionate and good business reasons.
“The longer this situation continues the more Queenslanders will be out of work, the more families that will break down under the stress, the higher the mental toll will be on all of us.
“A safe state is a vaccinated state, and an isolated state is a state of denial against the inevitable,” Andrews said.