NEW South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s tough border stance is impacting small businesses in her state, with the closures affecting small towns along the Murray River that rely on customers from Victoria and South Australia.
NSW businesses in Gol Gol and Buronga have been some of the hardest hit, suffering from a drastic decrease in traffic on what is a normally busy thoroughfare.
The border closure debate was reignited this week after research from the Business Council of Australia found Australia is losing a whopping $319 million a day in domestic and international air travel, and that reopening state borders would inject $3.3 billion back into the nation’s economy.
Holiday park owner Justin Kelly said while business was booming for his Mildura accommodation, his holiday park — just a stone’s throw over the river — was as quiet as ever.
“Our powered sites at Rivergardens have been really quiet. We’re basically too far south in New South Wales to get people to travel there.”
“We’re the link between Sydney and Adelaide. It’s a main thoroughfare, and people can’t do that any more so it has affected the whole area quite a bit.”
His Mildura business had been going “gangbusters” since reopening in mid-September following Premier Daniel Andrews’ relaxing of restrictions in regional Victoria.
“We’ve been fully booked for our powered sites every night since then, so it’s totally different to over the river,” Mr Kelly said.
“We were really busy in the September school holidays, and now that the weather is warming up it’s a big drawcard.
“People look to see that we have 27 degrees and they’re coming from all over Victoria.”
Mr Kelly said out of all of the havoc he had faced as a small business owner during the coronavirus pandemic, the border closure had been the worst and he urged the NSW Premier to relax the restrictions.
“Borders have had the biggest impact on my business.
“What we need here is the NSW Government to relax their borders. Unless the NSW border closure is gone, it’s not going to benefit us at all.”
Despite headaches caused by the border closures in recent months, Mr Kelly is anticipating a busy summer, hopeful that people will take advantage of regional travel.
“We think it’s going to be exceptionally busy for the next 18 months to two years.
“People can’t go overseas, or can’t go on a cruise ship. After being locked up and on the chain for that long, people just want to go somewhere.”
