15 September 2020

Gungahlin woman denied the chance to say goodbye to her dying mother

| Hannah Sparks
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Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been criticised for the state’s harsh border restrictions. Photo: File.

Another Canberra woman has been left heartbroken after her request to say goodbye to her dying mother and attend the funeral in Cairns was ignored by the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Sophie Andrews (the name Region Media has given the woman to provide anonymity) was forced to watch her mother’s funeral online from her Gungahlin home on Friday, even though she planned to travel directly from Canberra where there have been zero cases of COVID-19 since 10 July.

“I sat there watching Mum deteriorating on FaceTime, it was very frustrating,” Ms Andrews said while fighting back tears.

“I never got to hug and kiss her as I would have been able to if the borders had not been closed and I had been able to travel up there. My mum gave the best hugs!”

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Ms Andrews is a Queenslander but lives in the ACT while her husband serves in the Australian Army.

“I wouldn’t have minded if the Queensland Premier checked my COVID-19 tracking app to see that I hadn’t been to NSW or left the Australia Capital Territory for months now,” she said.

Doctors warned Ms Andrews that her mother had taken a turn for the worse a couple of weeks ago after battling cancer for several years. However, the initial diagnosis that gave Ms Andrews’ mother several weeks to live soon became days.

The 14-day mandatory quarantine for those travelling to Queensland meant that even though Ms Andrews and her family were granted permission to travel to Cairns, they would have been stuck in a hotel during her mother’s last days and the funeral.

More than a week before the funeral, Ms Andrews sent a written plea to Premier Palaszczuk to waive the 14-day quarantine.

The only reply Ms Andrews received was an email from the premier’s office saying her border exemption request had been forwarded to Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles.

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“I am begging that you would allow me, my husband and four young children to travel up and say goodbye to my mother and support my father at this time,” Ms Andrews said in her plea on 2 September.

“We would fly direct from Canberra where, as you know, there have been no cases in 54 days now. We would stop over in Brisbane and not leave the airport and then fly direct to Cairns all while wearing masks. We have not left the ACT for many weeks now and have been socially distancing here as well.

“Please put yourself in our situation. What would you do if it were your parents?”

The Queensland Government has been criticised for its harsh border closures and for identifying the ACT as a COVID-19 hotspot on grounds it’s surrounded by cases in NSW.

Premier Palaszczuk has also come under fire for allowing AFL players and their families to cross the border while people such as Ms Andrews have been denied access to their parent’s funerals.

Canberra woman Sarah Caisip was also denied permission to attend her father’s funeral in Queensland. She was only allowed to view her father’s body for 10 minutes while wearing full personal protective equipment.


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“The fact that we’re at 65 days without coronavirus in the ACT means the Queensland Premier’s decision to keep the border closed can only be political,” Ms Andrews said on Sunday (13 September).

Ms Andrews and her family are hoping to travel to Cairns to be with Ms Andrews’ father and siblings in October.

“I’m hoping Premier Palaszczuk doesn’t get reelected in October and the borders are open again so we all can go up and be with Dad.”

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All politics , they could have let her in . The premier is hiding behind the health minster.

These are exceptional times. Hundreds in this country have died alone without their relatives allowed to be present and it hasn’t raised the attention that either of these cases has. Not to mention the thousands of cases where relatives are separated by international borders.

Vicky Diamond1:18 am 18 Sep 20

As a Canberran, I am really glad that the QLD premier has also closed its borders to ACT. If their borders were open to ACT, while closed to NSW and Victorian, then the ACT would be inundated with a flood of people from NSW and Victoria, some of whom could be infected with Covid, just so they can fly to QLD.

I know how devastating it is not to be with your parents when they are dying. But, it is not as devastating as causing the deaths of other people’s parents and grandparents, if quarantine is not strictly enforced.

I feel sad for all of those who could not be with their loved ones as they lay dying. But we need to protect those who are still living and we need to protect as many businesses and jobs and livelihoods as we can. We can’t protect lives and livelihoods without quarantine.

I do not vote Labor at all and could never bring myself to vote for the Labor and union culture. Having said that, I can see how the border situation is based on health as it in layman’s terms ties into healthy boundaries that is expanded on in detail within trusted and unbiased medical journals and medical research. Opening borders before it is safe to do so would seem to be against medical advisory though whether it is safe or not now is up for debate. There has been a lack of consistency in the management of the borders by allowing people to enter and in some cases providing exemptions based on profitability that is not extended to other citizens, and the overriding of health concerns by prioritising profitability and economics over health on some occasions that would not seem to tie in with general medical advisory.

The heartless arrogance and incompetence of the Qld Premier has been breathtaking in the deliberate distress and trauma she is causing to families. The modeling on which Qld and Vic policymakers have based their decision making has been shown to be flawed by academics in James Cook University and Melbourne University. The models exaggerated infection rates and do not support extreme lockdowns and border closures, which have led to crippling economic, health and social costs. What use is the Human Rights Commission when human rights are being stripped away and this body says and does nothing? Where are the usually noisy self-proclaimed defenders of civil liberties within the Greens and Labor parties who are now invisible and deafening in their silence? When ordinary Australians suffer, these impotent hypocites in politics and their mindless cheer squad supporters are more dangerous and destructive to the Australian community than any virus.

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