“For the sake of the well-being of the community and business, the Queensland Government should today end the vague and conflicting messages on the reopening of our state borders,” Rebecca Andrews, Queensland Head of the peak employer association Ai Group said today.
“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.
“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. This requires decisive leadership that can only come from making a clear reopening announcement and then sticking to it.
“Vaccination coverage is what will make this state safe in the longer run not the false sense of security from closed borders.
“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.
“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 vaxers.
“There is a compelling case for our 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,” Ms Andrews said.
