Coronavirus: door slammed on Aussies as foreign students prepare to touch down

The same state rolling out the red carpet for 300 students from Singapore will on Friday slam the door on Victorian students.

SA Premier Steven Marshall. Picture: Kelly Barnes

The same state rolling out the red carpet for 300 students from Singapore will on Friday slam the door on Victorian school students, health workers and business owners living on the wrong side of the border.

The decision by the South Australian government to allow a trial of 300 international students makes economic sense — the state’s university sector is reeling financially, with University of ­Adelaide staff this week voting to accept a pay cut — but it has also sparked claims of double standards as the state locks down its Victorian border.

In a dramatic escalation of the rules, SA has scrapped cross-border exemption permits for residents of far western Victoria, banned all Victorian children ­except those in Years 11 and 12 from continuing to attend SA schools and barred all “non-­urgent” medical travel.

The border closure decision — made by Police Commissioner Grant Stevens and backed by Premier Steven Marshall — is also causing a significant political brawl within the fractured SA Liberals, with federal Liberal MPs going public on behalf of cross-border communities.

Member for Barker Tony Passin said he had been inundated with complaints from families and businesses struggling to cope with the hard closure and who want the reintroduction of cross-border exemption permits.

Other federal Liberals have told The Australian they and Scott Morrison are becoming increasingly tired of the state’s heavy-handedness on borders and are troubled by the constitutional ­implications of such decisions being made not be elected governments but by police.

The human impact of the closure is worsening fast, with The Australian speaking to several families along the border, some of whom live just a few hundred ­metres on the Victorian side and on farms that in some cases straddle both states.

They include Pinnaroo business owner Guy Badman who will shut his coffee shop indefinitely on Friday when the cross-border ­exemptions are scrapped.

His neighbour on Pinnaroo’s high street, Bec Oakley, is contemplating the indefinite closure of the homewares and fashion store she opened almost two years ago.

Mr Badman’s wife Bronwyn teaches at Pinnaroo Primary School. She is working on plans to create a “cell” of half a dozen five-year-olds who, as Victorians, will no longer be able to travel a few kilometres over the border to ­attend school.

Ms Oakley also works at the primary school, one day a work in its library, but has been told that, as a Victorian, she won’t be allowed into SA from Friday to work.

The Badmans and their three children live 4km over the border in Victoria, while Ms Oakley and her farmer husband Trent and their two children live on a property straddling the border in an area known as Panitya, but ­because their house is on the Victorian side of their property they’re classified as Victorians.

“What sort of government are we living under that does this to Australian citizens?” Mr Badman said. “The decision about the overseas students looks like a total double standard. Maybe we should move to Singapore and they would let us in then. We are out here in the middle of nowhere with no COVID. All we are asking for is a proportionate response to the threat.”

Ms Oakley said people in the border community were “quietly going out of their heads”.

“We have been on the fall range of emotions from anger to disbelief, and we can’t seem to get a straight answer,” she said. “I’m just packing up and bringing everything home. If it’s four or five weeks it might be manageable but if it goes on to Christmas who knows how people will survive.”

Mr Stevens said he understood the impact that the border closure and that he hoped it could be lifted as soon as possible. He pleaded for understanding and said police were trying to work through uncharted scenarios. “There will be things found that were not right, things that were done that were best guess, but we are working in such a complex field trying to get it right and protect South Australians and the wider Australian community,” he said.