Go ahead with Australian Open and open all borders too – The Australian Financial Review

This also recalls Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk keeping the border closed to virus-free NSW while allowing Melbourne-based AFL bigwigs in for the AFL grand final during Victorias second wave.

Some players have complained on social media of being unaware of the hard quarantine requirement if passengers tested positive, and say they would have never boarded the flight under those conditions. With eight-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic pushing for better food, less isolation time, and for quarantine to be shifted to private houses with tennis courts, the players have been accused of acting like pampered prima donnas.

Border populism and propping up zombie jobs impede dynamism and the efficient reallocation of the nation's productive human capital.

Rather than seeking special treatment, the issue is about practice and performance after a two-week lay-off confined to quarters, and the unfair advantage gained by competitors able to train for five hours a day within a semi-quarantine bubble.

The hard quarantine imposed on potentially exposed players, most of whom sat rows away and had little or no close contact with an infected person, is an ultra-cautious safeguard. But it also means that the Australian Open going ahead next month is unlikely to pose a clear and present health danger that would justify cancellation at this point.

The real issue that has once again been highlighted by the Australian Open controversy is the inconsistencies of Australias open-closed state border chaos. As NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says, it makes no sense for Victorian counterpart Daniel Andrews to allow in tennis travellers from virus-ravaged Europe and the US while maintaining the unnecessary ban on returning Victorians and visitors from hotspot-free Greater Sydney.

Mr Andrews yesterday belatedly relaxed the ban to just 10 local government areas in western Sydney. But with all of Australia now declared hotspot-free by federal health authorities, all remaining internal border barriers should now be lifted, consistent with the national cabinet decision that parochial state premiers have consistently ignored.

As we report on Tuesday, border populism is now coming back to bite Western Australia, with the block on the entry of skilled labour set to cause costly delays on Perths multibillion-dollar Metronet railway project. This comes as labour force data reveals a jobs boom in some parts of the economy, with workers who lost their jobs in pandemic-hit sectors transitioning to new jobs in other industries.

Border populism and propping up zombie jobs with JobKeeper impede this kind of dynamism. As with ending JobKeeper, lifting border bans will prompt the efficient reallocation of the nation's productive human capital, which is now needed to keep Australias safe COVID-19 recovery going.

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Go ahead with Australian Open and open all borders too - The Australian Financial Review