THE COVID-19 pandemic has exposed how severely artificial lines on a map can impact communities.
From August 21, the South Australia-Victoria border will become a towering rampart, dividing communities and creating chaos and despair for Victorians and South Australians alike.
To communities such as Murrayville and Pinnaroo, Kaniva and Bordertown, and Edenhope and Naracoorte, the synthetic line between their towns has long been invisible and irrelevant.
Although laws and postcodes might change as one crosses the border, these are cohesive communities that rely on each other for their very survival.
The farmers, health workers, teachers and families I have spoken to are fearful for the health and wellbeing of their communities.
Seeking medical treatment across the border has been difficult since March, but will now be near-impossible for most.
For some, getting basic supplies like groceries, medicine and fuel will require a round trip of hundreds of kilometres; people will be barred from their workplaces at schools and businesses and farm equipment and chemicals will need be sourced elsewhere with great difficulty and expense.
I heard the anxiety in Shayleah’s voice this week as she told me about her son Parker, who received a heart transplant at the age of two. Parker, now seven years old, requires monthly cardiology appointments in Adelaide, as well as access to life-saving medications. Without intervention, this was a horror story waiting to unfold.
Another woman from Edenhope called my office in tears, saying she feels that her community has been abandoned by Australia. She said South Australia doesn’t want them and Victoria doesn’t care. Now her community is wondering how it will survive this crisis.
The decisions made by New South Wales and South Australia to fortify their Victorian borders have exposed the city-country divide like never before. The bureaucrats in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne clearly have no conception about the reality of life in border communities. We don’t determine community by border crossings, bridges, or distance.
I have taken the stories shared with me to the top and I will not stop making noise until common sense prevails and these un-Australian decisions are reversed. Sydney and Adelaide have put up walls and our communities are on the outside looking in.
How can we truly be “all in this together” when border communities are being left out in the cold?
Anne Webster is the Member for Mallee
