The Northern Territory Chief Minister has accused a group of travellers of putting lives at risk after they allegedly tried to avoid going into quarantine by falsely claiming they had not recently been in the declared COVID-19 hotspot of Melbourne.
"I'm furious that six wankers from Melbourne thought they could gamble with Territory lives for a holiday and a wedding," Michael Gunner said.
The two men and four women, aged between 29 and 31, flew from Adelaide to Darwin on Tuesday, where they allegedly told border entry staff they had not been in Melbourne since the NT declared it a COVID-19 hotspot on July 15.
However, police said subsequent enquiries revealed they had, in fact, been in Melbourne on July 15.
"It's absolutely unacceptable that these people were willing to put the rest of our community at risk by their selfish actions," Acting Commander Hege Burns said.
The group was removed from their hotel in Winnellie and taken into mandatory supervised quarantine.
They have been issued with infringement notices of $5,056 each for providing false information on their border entry forms.
"They're now in Howard Springs and are collectively going to be about $30,000 poorer," Mr Gunner said.
Winnellie Hotel duty manager Clara Shields said the guests' two hotel rooms would be deep cleaned on Saturday, following a direction from NT Health not to enter the rooms for 72 hours.
Ms Shields said in the context of lockdowns in Greater Sydney, Victoria and South Australia, it was disappointing that some people "don't want to take it seriously".
The ABC has contacted NT Health to request the results of any COVID-19 testing conducted on the six adults since they were transferred to Howard Springs.
Since the start of the pandemic, NT Police have handed out more than 200 infringements for breaching Chief Health Officer (CHO) directions.
In October last year, NT Police fined three people from regional Victoria for breaching CHO directions, after they spent time in a regional community instead of quarantining as required.
In July last year, two people were directed into supervised quarantine after they failed to self-isolate while in the remote community of Gapuwiyak in Arnhem Land.
