THE impact of hard border closures on our communities has again been our biggest issue this week.
After weeks of lobbying, it would be hard for the New South Wales or South Australian governments to argue they do not understand the crushing economic, social and potentially health implications that have been unfairly and disproportionately imposed on border communities.
So it begs the question – do they just not care?
For NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to continually say there is no labour shortage in her state — and out-of-work aviation or hospitality workers from Sydney could easily replace more than 1000 visa-holding seasonal workers picking fruit — smacks of ignorance.
Then we’ve had the SA Government this week enforcing an unrealistic requirement on border-crossing residents from Victoria to have a COVID-19 test every seven days.
Given Victoria won’t allow asymptomatic testing – not to mention the lack of testing availability in remote and regional towns – how is someone from Murrayville going to be able to get a test every week? It’s an unrealistic requirement and completely disproportionate to the risk.
These are just two of many, many examples of the adverse impacts of these border closures on our communities. Businesses closing, people put out of work, access to medical services or other supplies limited – the stories are almost endless.
It is why this week I called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Federal Government to immediately intervene by creating a minister for temporary borders who would be tasked with creating formally defined and separately managed low-risk zones across state lines.
Temporarily redrawing the current state boundaries would allow governments to maximise safety while minimising the disruption to our economy and social fabric.
Clearly the current approach is not working and neither the NSW nor the SA governments has indicated how long these draconian hard border closures will be in place.
Putting the health and wellbeing of our communities at risk by making us collateral damage, when there has been very few – or no – virus cases for months is not acceptable.
We are not just Victorians, we are Australians, and we deserve better.
