Tweed councillor and Chamber of Commerce president Warren Polglase pushing to have border bubble shifted south to Ballina

A huge push is on to further extend the border bubble after a meeting today among senior politicians.

A VETERAN Tweed councillor has urged the Queensland and New South Wales premiers to put aside personal grievances as he pushes to have the border bubble shifted south to Ballina.

Tweed Chamber of Commerce boss Warren Polglase is concerned about mental health impacts of the social and economic pain inflicted on shire residents due to the tough border measures.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday bowed to pressure to extend the bubble in the Goondiwindi area, giving fresh hope that Mr Polglase’s campaign can succeed.

It comes after Richmond MP Justine Elliot wrote to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian last week urgently requesting border checkpoints be moved south.

Mr Polglase met with NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Tweed MP Geoff Provest in the Tweed on Tuesday, alongside affected businesspeople.

He spoke to Mr Barilaro about moving the border bubble to the Ballina Shire boundary, which would require the co-operation of both the Queensland and NSW Governments.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in 2018. Picture: Kym Smith.

He said the government on his side of the border could provide the Queensland Government with support to make the move happen.

“I got a good response. We put forward the proposal that the bubble be moved further south to Ballina Shire and the NSW Government provide the necessary resources to support that proposal,” he said.

“Whether that requires police, better testing at the airports, that sort of thing. And more testing around the area if that needs to be the case. It was well received.

“It’s going to be looked at and I think they’re going to give it a go (approaching Queensland). I think there’ll be discussions in the government on how to move this forward.”

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Ms Palaszczuk and Ms Berejiklian have had little do with each other since the coronavirus pandemic began, it has been revealed.

“We see each other in National Cabinet and I will leave it at that … ,” Ms Berejiklian said.

The politicians have instead been firing off pot shots at each other through the media.

Tweed Shire councillor and Chamber of Commerce president Warren Polglase.

Mr Polglase was optimistic about the meeting with Mr Barilaro, but believes the premiers must bang their heads together to hash out pressing issues arising from the border measures.

“Look, we need to take the politics out of this and have a commonsense approach and create an opportunity for dialogue,” Mr Polglase said.

“You expect people at that level of government to be quite open and considerate of proposals that come forward that benefit both sides of the border.

“If this keeps up we’ll have more businesses out of work, struggling with not having income. This is having an enormous effect on people.

“Couples must come home of a night and say ‘s**t, I wonder if I’ve got a job tomorrow?’ It’s an enormous mental burden on people.”

Mr Polglase took issue with Queensland’s declaration of the entirety of NSW as a hot spot, considering Northern NSW Local Health District has recorded no new cases since July 25.