Two teens who flew to Sydney and then lied to the Queensland authorities to re-enter the state are being slammed and people are furiously calling for tougher punishments.
Karl Stefanovic said that “stupid actions” of the girls would cost Queensland economy, calling for “quadrupled” their $4000 fines.
“I think the inconvenience and also just the anxiousness that was produced by these two girls, it warrants having a look at the fines,” he said this morning. “I know it is a state-by-state thing, but I feel very strongly that the fines don’t fit the potential damage that can be caused and obviously these people aren’t worried about fines at this point.
“I think we need to at least double, triple, quadruple the fines.”
Karl also added they should be given “jail time”.
“They didn’t give the right information, they’ve travelled into Sydney and then they’ve gone into Brisbane, providing the wrong information. And now what’s happened is there’s a shutdown. Now, their stupid actions are going to cost the Queensland economy. They’re going to cost businesses around Brisbane.
“They’re going to cost potentially the freedoms of people travelling in and out of the state obviously. They’ve caused all that stress for those people and I think it’s time that authorities stepped up and really increased the fines and increased all the things that need to be done in order to stop people from doing it, to make them think twice, because of the ramifications of stupid actions are now beyond.”
The women, both 19, travelled from Melbourne to Brisbane via Sydney, arriving in the capital of Queensland on July 21.
They were slapped with a heavy fine on Wednesday night after they reportedly lied to officials about where they had been and refused to quarantine.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said after visiting hotspots there would be a “thorough police inquiry” into how the women escaped quarantine.
“I‘m absolutely furious that this has happened,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“These two people have gone to Victoria, have come back and have given misleading information to authorities.
“I also want to say now that it is going to cause a lot of inconvenience to families but it is too important and we must protect Queenslanders.”
Here’s the list of places the three new Qld COVID cases have been. Anyone who has been to these places at the times below should immediately go into self-quarantine and call 13 HEALTH. @abcbrisbane pic.twitter.com/Cw6EU25z4x
— Dan Smith (@0DanSmith) July 29, 2020
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has asked all returning QLD travellers to be honest.
“If you have been to Victoria or one of these clusters in Sydney just be honest and take the 14-day quarantine. It’s a minor thing compared to infecting the rest of Queensland. It’s 14 days of watching Netflix.”