Queensland police are investigating seven people who sailed to the Gold Coast from Victoria aboard a luxury superyacht under an exemption for repairs.
A criminal investigation has been launched into a group of people who sailed a luxury yacht to Queensland under an exemption for repairs.
The seven people arrived at the Gold Coast from Victoria aboard the Lady Pamela superyacht on Aug. 24.
Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski says a criminal investigation is underway.
“We are doing that in collaboration with the New South Wales Police Force,” he told reporters on Aug. 26.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young earlier granted the vessel and its crew an exemption to come from Victoria to Queensland for routine maintenance and repairs.
The yacht was not supposed to stop in NSW during the journey and the crew were told to quarantine at sea.
“They were (also) only meant to have the people necessary to bring the yacht safely up to Queensland,” Young said.
“That’s a very serious investigation.”
All those on board are now in hotel quarantine and their travel exemption has been revoked.
Queensland recorded one new case of coronavirus overnight, the eleventh in the Brisbane youth detention centre cluster.
The case is a known close contact of another infected person and was already in quarantine.
“We have not seen any community transmission due to any of the original five cases of those youth workers at the centre,” Young said.
“There is still a risk over the next week that we will see that.”
Young urged people to continue coming forward for testing, saying there may be more cases undiagnosed.
“We actually don’t know what the link is for this cluster (and) where did they actually get it from,” she said.
Police have now found 92 of the 94 children authorities were tracing, and are confident the other two will be located soon.
Meanwhile, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says a Federal Court ruling endorsing Western Australia’s hard border closure vindicates Queensland’s decision to quarantine the state.
Justice Darryl Rangiah on Tuesday found the hard borders were stronger than any alternative approach to keeping COVID-19 out of WA and that an uncontrolled outbreak could have “catastrophic” health consequences.
Palaszczuk says the court’s findings support the decision close Queensland’s borders.
“I am very pleased with that result because that is exactly what I have been saying,” she told reporters on Aug. 26.
Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles said the court’s decision was a “defeat for our knockers.”
Miles said it was a loss for Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Clive Palmer and their attempts to criticise states that closed their borders.
“This has confirmed that keeping borders closed is an effective and legal measure,” he said.
