THE SA Government has been urged to immediately abandon plans to implement extreme border restrictions.
Member for Mildura Ali Cupper dismissed claims from Federal Trade and Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham that she was “wrong” about the current restrictions being a political move.
“Mr Birmingham claimed there was an increase in reported cases in Victorian border communities and that there was a threat from growing cases in regional Victoria,” she said.
“But neither of these things are true.
“Case numbers have been consistently falling in regional Victoria over the past five days and while there remains some concern about hot spots in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, there has not been growth in the border LGAs.”
Ms Cupper said the current restrictions on the Victorian-SA border were working and there was no need to tighten the rules on border communities.
“There has not been one infection in SA caused by a person from a border community,” she said.
“People in those communities are extremely vigilant about keeping the virus out and have done everything asked of them.
“The restrictions coming on Friday are a bridge too far and it’s not too late for the SA Government to look at the facts, rather than playing politics, and just maintain the current restrictions.”
Senator Birmingham told ABC Radio Adelaide on Friday that everyone understood why the state would shut out Victoria.
“Right now, that’s completely necessary and justified,” Senator Birmingham said.
“There has been an increase in reported cases of COVID in some of the closer border communities in different parts of regional Victoria, and that’s what’s driven South Australia to take the increasingly tougher approach over a period of time.”
But Ms Cupper said case numbers have been consistently falling in regional Victoria over the past week.
“There are currently 10 cases attributed to border LGAs – including the Mildura case which it has been widely reported is a person who contracted the virus while in Melbourne and remains isolating in Melbourne,” she said.
“From all reports, the clusters in Portland (seven cases) were from families and not community transmission, are contained and the number of active cases is falling, not growing.”
