Tamworth hotel quarantine: Tamworth mayor Col Murray disappointed by quarantine rejection

Deputy Premier John Barilaro this evening shot down the idea as "too great a risk".

Tamworth mayor Col Murray said the idea posed a "very, very low risk".

"When you look at the statistics of COVID that were in those island nations, there's very, very low risk," he said.

"In fact, possibly the agricultural workers coming here might have been at a greater risk of catching it from us than the other way around. However, I guess this is all about democracy at work."

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He said "confusion" over the idea was responsible for backlash in the Tamworth community.

"I think probably the biggest challenge has been the lack of early information and the misunderstanding of what this proposition is actually about," he said.

Mayor Col Murray told the Leader on Tuesday the council had been in talks over a plan to bring in a small number of low-risk workers like fruit pickers from non-hotspots.

Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson opposed the idea.

Mr Barilaro declared on Thursday that "any quarantine arrangement for seasonal workers will not be taking place in Tamworth, nor any other regional location".

The quarantine concept was first raised by New England MP Barnaby Joyce, who told the Leader last week he was "trying to make Tamworth part of the solution" to the hotel quarantine bottleneck.

He said Tamworth Flight Training Centre could be used as a quarantine hub to bring Australians, like Tamworth-born ophthalmologist Phoebe MacKenzie, back home from the UK.

Cr Murray said the council had never been considering full-scale hotel quarantine.

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