Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has opened Queensland’s border for next month’s planned NRL restart, ensuring Brisbane, North Queensland and Gold Coast will avoid relocating to New South Wales.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, had said earlier on Friday it would be a matter for state jurisdictions to clear any resumption of sporting activities, following a meeting of the national cabinet.
Palaszczuk not only gave the green light for the state’s three NRL clubs to train at their base and travel interstate but also host home games.
“I said I was as keen as anyone else to see the NRL return and I meant it,” Palaszczuk said. “The only condition was that it did not put our excellent work containing the spread of Covid-19 at risk and the chief health officer advises that the NRL plan is workable.”
But the New Zealand-based Warriors have not yet been given clearance to travel to Australia, ahead of the planned return to training on Monday and a season resumption on 28 May. “No amount of reporting” would change that, Morrison said, after the Nine Network had reported earlier in the day that the national cabinet had approved the Warriors to fly into Tamworth on Sunday.
A decision on that will be made on the basis of assessment by the Australian Border Force, which is ongoing. “When they’re in a position to authorise it, they will,” Morrison said.
The NSW state government has also yet to grant exemption for the Warriors to train as a group should they spend two weeks in quarantine. But league officials remain confident those exemptions will be secured in time for the team to be in the country by next week.
“The Warriors will be on the plane,” the ARL Commission chairman, Peter V’landys, told AAP on Friday. “I clarified all those matters. I’ll have it in writing to them once I get all the border security and state government approvals. The Warriors just wanted clarity on a few things and now they have got that they are fully supportive.”
V’landys had spoken with Warriors players amid fears of a player revolt as they unified to address concerns about relocating.
Warriors players will receive the same pay as the rest of the NRL, with all players to receive 80% of their original annual salary. Talks with broadcasters remain ongoing to determine exactly how much money will flow into the game this season.
Families of Warriors players will remain in New Zealand for now, although the league is hopeful border restrictions will eventually ease. Players across all clubs will return to their bases on Monday for a briefing on biosecurity laws, however they have yet to commit to a return to training.
Friday’s cabinet meeting also set a range of principles for the broader resumption of sport and recreation activities, from professional leagues to grassroots competition. The principles draw heavily on the Australian Institute of Sport’s framework for rebooting sport across the country, Morrison said, and spoke to the “need for community sport to be moving”.
According to the principles, any return to the playing field should not compromise the health of individuals or the community. It will be based on objective health information and introduced in a phased fashion, initially for small groups of less than 10 people in a non-contact way.
With Australian Associated Press
