Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) candidate for Herbert, Clynton Hawks, says that the requirement for staff working in hospitality settings to isolate for seven days following a “close contact” event is unworkable and destroying local businesses. Mr Hawks says he wants an immediate review of the rule, with a view to scrapping it altogether.

Mr Hawks’ call for policy changes relating to when a person is required to isolate following a close contact comes after reports that restaurants at the Ville Casino in Townsville will be forced to shut over the new year as a result of almost 50 staff being ordered to self-isolate, joining another 25 already under such an order after visiting “exposure sites” in the city. [1]

“The net cast by this rule is too wide and effectively cripples businesses,” Mr Hawks said.

“If this policy is allowed to stand we might as well say ‘good-bye’ to the tourism and hospitality industry in Townsville,” Mr Hawks said.

Mr Hawks said that the rule will run “businesses out of town,” and needs to be reviewed while “we still have an industry to save.”

“If I was in the restaurant business I’d be thinking about my options,” Mr Hawks said, adding that it’s already been a fairly horrendous 18 months for the industry.

Mr Hawks said he thinks businesses have a right to feel betrayed by indiscriminate government decision-making.

Mr Hawks said that the current implementation of the close contact rule resulting in the arbitrary imposition of self-quarantine orders is not what most people would say is “living with COVID.”

“Living with COVID means setting up policies that allow life to go on, that allow people to go to work, get paid and support their families,” Mr Hawks said.

KAP has called for government policies that support the greater use of rapid antigen tests in the public health response to the pandemic.

Mr Hawks said that governments at all levels, state and federal, need to get on the same page with respect incorporating rapid antigen testing into the public health response to the pandemic. He says the current shortage of rapid antigen tests is a direct result of governments not thinking through their own policy choices.

“I strongly believe all levels of government are guilty of short-sighted, politically-driven and knee-jerk policies,” Mr Hawks said.

“After almost two years you’d think we’d have the right settings in place,” Mr Hawks said.

“The current approach to dealing with close contacts is not working, but there’s still time to make adjustments,” Mr Hawks said.

Mr Hawks says that defining someone as being a “close contact” just because they visited an exposure site is too indiscriminate and casts the net too wide.

“We need to go back to a policy setting which recognizes there might actually have been ‘close contact’ with someone with COVID, and there’s a realistic chance of transmission,” Mr Hawks said.

“Right now, under the policy guidelines, you’re assumed to be infected and have to prove you’re not,” Mr Hawks said.

“It’s a costly and inefficient way of managing risk,” Mr Hawks said.

Mr Hawks said the fact that so many restaurant owners and peak body representatives have decried the rules shows how “not onboard they are with the current settings.”

He said that governments need to sit down with industry representatives to come up new guidelines that work for everyone and still achieve the policy outcomes desired by authorities.

“Australians know when their governments are being tyrannous, and they will rebel against anything they see as impinging on basic freedoms, not to mention basic common sense,” Mr Hawks said.

“The rules don’t make sense and pretty soon what you’re going to see is people not using the check-in apps anymore, and the whole system collapsing,” Mr Hawks said.