Open borders to rekindle the vitality of Federation

It’s time to get moving, and NSW, under Premier Gladys Berejiklian, should take the initiative. Picture: James Gourley

Henry Parkes, veteran premier of the colony of NSW and champion of Federation, declared in 1890: “The time has now arrived when we are no longer separated. The crimson thread of kinship runs through us all.” He was harking back to the distinct origins and colonial rivalries of NSW, Victoria and Queensland, but more than a century later we are discovering — amid pandemic crisis and dislocation — a strange and unsettling sense of separation forced upon us as Australians. Of course, we remain a political union — one in theory brought closer by a national cabinet — but our economy and society are fragmented by erratic state border closures.

Scott Morrison was right to focus minds on unity by year’s end, when he said in September: “What we have to work to do is to let Australians know that, by Christmas, they will be able to come together. By Christmas, they will be able to come together as families and look to a 2021 that doesn’t look like the difficulties that they’ve gone through in 2020.” That festival is symbolic of scattered family and friends making the effort to come together. For morale, hope and effective public policy, it’s vital to have a goal and a set date. But the disproportionate financial and human costs of lockdown and poorly thought-through border closures are becoming more obvious by the day.

It’s time to get moving, and NSW, the state that Parkes did so much to bring to life, should take the initiative. Gladys Berejiklian has rightly earned plaudits as the most pragmatic and effective premier in responding to COVID-19 while keeping the state, its businesses, family life and social activities as open as possible. Remember, this is not a crude trade-off between money and lives. A lockdown more severe than is necessary to cope with COVID also costs lives, damages the social fabric and harms wellbeing. Jobs, productive work and income are enmeshed with individual dignity and communal vitality.

With some exemptions, the NSW-Victoria land border was sealed for the first time in living memory in July. Separating our two biggest state populations and economies, it is symbolically the most important border in the nation. It should be reopened immediately. This is a moment of truth for Ms Berejiklian to act decisively and show national leadership, in the spirit of our Federation’s founders. We must start to unravel the mess of micromanaged but often inconsistent and irrational restrictions on movement across the country, restrictions which very few people can comprehend or keep track of. Some cases of unintended tragedy have been well publicised: the northern NSW mother with pregnancy complications who was denied entry to Queensland and lost one of her twins after having to fly to Sydney; and the Canberra nurse who was kept by border red-tape from her father’s funeral service in Brisbane. But there are myriad other stories of absurdity and hardship, especially in country towns close to state borders, and the restrictions often seem arbitrary rather than lifesaving.

In Queensland and Western Australia — both states with long isolationist traditions — premiers have represented border closures as public health imperatives, clearly tapping into a fearful fortress mentality. Although chief medical officers rightly have input into such decisions, they are ultimately political in the sense that they require accountable leaders to balance competing values and interests. It’s no coincidence that reopening of the NSW-Queensland border has been floated as possible for November 1, the day after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk receives the verdict of voters in the Queensland election. At the weekend, she was still pitching to that old sentiment of self-enclosed Queensland with her rebuke aimed at “voices from the South and the Deep South” urging her to lift the barricades.

In Western Australia, Premier Mark McGowan also held out against a timely, co-ordinated re-opening across the country. In truth, it’s in the enduring interests of every state and territory to revive a national, COVID-safe economy as soon as possible. We face a grim enough recession already without baking in more misery. The emotional investment of family reunion and economic stimulus of interstate travel go hand-in-hand. Cities and regions desperately need the inflow of visitors. Denied international arrivals for now, tourism can offset its losses with custom from Australians whose inability to go overseas is creating pent-up demand for domestic destinations. This is especially important for Victoria, where lockdown is having a catastrophic effect on businesses, jobs, psychological welfare and confidence.

So, it’s welcome news from Premier Dan Andrews that the extreme restrictions imposed on Victorians will begin to be loosened from tomorrow. At great cost, Victoria has sharply reduced the spread of COVID, and NSW continues to manage the outbreak well. It’s time to open up.