Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is on her way to Tokyo to help seal the deal for Brisbane to host the 2032 Olympic Games.
Ms Palaszczuk checked in at Sydney Airport on Sunday evening ready to depart for Japan on what has become a controversial trip out of the country.
An All Nippon Airways flight to Tokyo left Sydney shortly after 9pm, due to arrive in Japan early on Monday morning.
“The people of Queensland expected me to go and represent their best interests. (IOC vice president) John Coates has said if I don’t go, the whole bid could fail,” the Premier said.
She previously said she would do the 14-day hotel quarantine as expected of all returning travellers.
There is an online petition circulating requesting that Australia deny Ms Palaszczuk’s trip on the grounds that she would be taking the spot of another Australian desperate to come home amid closed international borders.
To date the petition has collected more than 130,000 signatures.
“It has been made very clear by John Coates, 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,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“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.”
The Premier, who has had both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, has lodged a travel exemption so she can fly to Tokyo for the meeting, then fly straight back home to hotel quarantine.
She has received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine in order to travel safely to Japan.
