CONFUSION and added holiday stress was rife among Sunraysia’s border residents on Friday following the announcement of a permit system for all NSW residents entering Victoria starting from midnight Friday.
The new measure was in response to Sydney’s northern beaches COVID-19 cluster, which late on Friday reached 28.
Little information was provided on how permits would be checked locally, where thousands of motorists cross between the states each day.
During an afternoon press conference, Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said motorists’ permits would not be checked right on the state’s borders, but further inland, where patrols would be set up on Victoria’s major highways.
“It won’t be right at the NSW-Victorian border for obvious reasons — the border communities have significant numbers of people moving across but are really only moving across from areas right next to the border,” Prof Sutton said.
“Further into Victoria is where there will be checks in place in particular, and people can and should expect some delays by virtue of that.”
However, Victoria Police said in response to the temporary border measure, from midnight, patrols would “operate 24 hours a day and will cover both the major arterial roads and backroads on the Victoria-New South Wales border to ensure compliance with the Chief Health Officer directions”.
The permits will operate on a traffic light system and will allow travellers from regional NSW, dubbed the “green zone”, to travel into Victoria provided they have a permit and must watch for COVID symptoms.
Anyone from greater Sydney, the “orange zone”, is advised to get tested on entering Victoria and remain in quarantine until receiving test results.
Testing chief Jeroen Weimar said people in the “red zone”, which includes Sydney’s northern beaches and other hot spots, cannot travel into Victoria, with checkpoints to also be established at major airports.
“Anybody who has been in any of the hot spot locations, the red zone locations, in particular the Northern Beaches, and other hot spots identified by NSW Health, will not be permitted to travel into Victoria,” Mr Weimar said.
“We are working with the airlines to ensure those checks take place pre-boarding from Sydney and will ensure there are people on the ground at Melbourne Airport, at Avalon and at Bendigo Airport from (Saturday) to check arriving passengers, to check their permits and their entitlement to travel.”
NSW residents intending to travel to Victoria were directed to fill out a permit at the Service Victoria website, however according to the site, permits would not be available until midnight Friday.
For more information, visit www.service.vic.gov.au/services/border-permit/home
