A purpose-built COVID-19 quarantine facility could be operating in Brisbane early next year after a feasibility study found a Defence site in Brisbane's east to be suitable.
An assessment by infrastructure consultancy group AECOM has determined the Damascus Barracks at Pinkenba, near Brisbane airport, could accommodate a 1,000-bed facility and be open in the first quarter of next year.
The development at the site would be funded by the Commonwealth and run by the Queensland government, which had been working with the federal government on planning for the facility.
The site was nominated by the federal government after it rejected the state government's push to have a regional quarantine facility built at Wellcamp airport, near Toowoomba.
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham said the Brisbane centre would increase the number of Australians able to return from overseas.
"It will also help enhance our medium and long-term capability to respond to future pandemics or natural disasters," he said.
"This site ticks all of the boxes, given it is on Commonwealth land, is next to Brisbane international airport and has a number of major hospitals in close proximity.
"Now that the site has been confirmed as suitable, we will now seek to close negotiations with the Queensland government to move ahead with this project."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said earlier this week he hoped the quarantine hub would be operational before the end of the year.
"There are a number of issues that have been raised in the process by the Queensland government, totally legitimate issues, we just have to work through those and hopefully we can proceed as soon as possible," Mr Morrison said on Tuesday.
Expert 'amazed' discussion of dedicated facilities continues
Queensland has experienced a string of leaks from hotel quarantine this year and the state government has been pushing the Commonwealth to commit to building a dedicated quarantine facility.
Earlier this month, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk continued to voice support for the Wellcamp facility, saying having two facilities would eliminate the need for quarantine hotels.
"If we had both quarantine facilities, so we had the one near Pinkenba and we had the one in Toowoomba, we would not need to use the hotels," she said.
"It's fully costed, it's ready to go — it could be built in two months."
Melbourne-based epidemiologist Dr Dris Ait Ouakrim, who has been part of a team tracking all of Australia and New Zealand's hotel quarantine outbreaks, said it was feared COVID-19 infections in hotel quarantine were only going to rise due to the Delta variant.
"There is emerging evidence that it [the Delta variant] can be caught by people just crossing each other's path — it's very worrying."
Dr Ait Ouakrim, said it was "quite amazing" discussions about setting up purpose-built quarantine facilities continued.
