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Change.org petition launched to stop Palaszczuk from jetting to Japan

Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, intends to travel to the Tokyo Olympics, despite her successful request to halve Australian hotel quarantine capacity.

A petition has been created on Change.org to deny Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk the right of exemption to leave Australia for the Olympics.

It currently has over 32,000 signatures at the time of writing. Palaszczuk said, “it will be a disaster” if she doesn’t travel to Tokyo for the Olympic meeting.

Image: Jono Searle via Getty Images

Palaszczuk has received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and intends to fly to the Tokyo Olympics for a meeting, before returning to Australia in hotel quarantine.

The reason for her trip is to secure Queensland’s bid to host the 2032 Olympics.

However, the petition argues that: “Annastacia Palaszczuk should not be allowed to steal a precious hotel quarantine space from a more deserving Stranded Australian trying to return home.

In February, Queensland was named the preferred candidate to host the 2032 Olympic games.

The events would take place in multiple Queensland cities, including Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.

The Premier has defended her decision to visit the Tokyo Olympics, affirming that:

It has been made very clear by John Coates (President of the Australian Olympic Committee), that it would be a disaster if the head of Queensland did not go and it is basically to go there, to make the pitch and to come back and then spend 14 days in hotel quarantine,”

I think it is very important that we have that really strong representation of federal, state and local because even Thomas Bach, the head of the Olympic committee, has said the strongest thing going for our bid is the enormous cooperation of all three levels of Government.

Australians stranded overseas are immensely frustrated that Palaszczuk will be allowed into hotel quarantine, while her advocacy to reduce quarantine capacity has stranded them overseas.

The Premier recently asserted that, after the Delta variant was leaked into the Australian community through an overseas traveller, Australia’s hotel quarantine caps should be reduced by 50 per cent.

We are at capacity. We’re stretched, and we need an immediate reduction by 50 per cent,” she explained.

The National Cabinet agreed to her requests, and the cap on international arrivals before July 14 was to be halved from 6,070 to 3,035.

Earlier this year, Palaszczuk was similarly criticised for her approach to hotel quarantine.

The Premier suggested shifting quarantine from Queensland’s large cities to the state’s mining camps. However, she was widely accused of attempting to dump the risk of COVID-19 onto the state’s regions.

Currently, Australians are not allowed to travel overseas unless granted an exemption from the Australian Border Force. The petition calls for Palaszczuk to be denied that exemption.