Coronavirus: Relief for SA border towns as rules lifted

Cross border communities straddling the SA-Victorian border have won a major reprieve with a buffer zone reinstated.

Victorians such as Bec Oakley, who lives in Panitya 2km over the Victorian border but runs a retail business in Pinnaroo, will be able to return to work. Picture: Tait Schmaal.

Cross border communities straddling the South Australia-Victorian border have won a major reprieve with the SA government scrapping its onerous crackdown which was preventing Victorian children from going to school just a few kilometres away in SA and subjecting farms and businesses to chaos and even closure.

As of last Friday, SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens controversially scrapped the border crossing exemptions for all Victorians to enter SA, save for grave medical emergencies, and narrowed the definition of essential work meaning that many Victorian business owners living east of SA townships such as Bordertown and Pinnaroo were forced to shut their doors.

That decision caused outrage along the border, especially in shires that had recorded close to zero cases, with families telling The Australian they were being unfairly punished for a crisis that was largely unfolding in Melbourne.

Few people in these border communities visit Melbourne at all for their medical needs, relying instead on services in nearby Adelaide, from which they were banned.

But following a meeting of the SA Covid Transition Committee on Tuesday Premier Steven Marshall and his Police Commissioner announced that the ban would now be reversed on account of continuing low Covid case numbers along the Victorian border.

From this Friday, the cross border exemption permit will be reintroduced allowing border residents to travel within a 40km radius, meaning Victorians such as Bec Oakley, who lives in Panitya 2km over the Victorian border but runs a retail business in Pinnaroo, will be able to return to work. It also means Ms Oakley will be allowed to resume her one-day-a-week teaching job at Pinnaroo Primary School, and that the school will no longer be forced to bar Victorian children from attending.

“It’s great news,” she told The Australian yesterday. “We can get back on with our lives.”

Premier Steven Marshall said it had never been SA’s intention to make life hard for these families but that the coronavirus crisis in Victoria had required a cautious response.

“We know it’s been hugely disruptive,” he said.

“We’ve always said we won’t keep [the rules] in place for one day longer than we need to.”

Mr Marshall said the next stage in lifting restrictions would hopefully be the removal of the mandatory 14-day quarantine for visitors to SA from NSW and the ACT.

“If we continue to see low levels it is quite possible that we will remove the requirement for 14 days’ isolation in the next two weeks,” Mr Marshall said.