Coronavirus: How a brave border girl called Mabel won Scott Morrison’s heart

Mabel Dyer, 2, is the human face of a draconian border closure that is dividing communities and creating misery.

Jonathan and Tiarnee Dyer with Tallulah, Mabel and Beatrix. Picture: Paul Jeffers

Two-year-old Mabel Dyer is the human face of a draconian border closure that is dividing communities and creating misery and economic hardship for Australian families living on the wrong side of an arbitrary line.

And her case has touched the heart of Scott Morrison, who on Friday contacted her family via The Weekend Australian, promising to resolve her case and prevent other similar problems in border communities.

The intervention of the Prime Minister in the case of Mabel signals a growing frustration at the federal level over the human impact of state border closures aimed at keeping Victorians isolated from the rest of the country.

The adorable toddler lives on a farm in the tiny Victorian town of Kaniva, just 20km east of the now-shuttered South Australian border with her pastoralist father Jonathan, mum Tiarnee, who teaches at Bordertown Primary School in SA, and her two older sisters, Beatrix, aged three, and Tallulah, five.

Mabel was born with hip dysplasia, a bone condition that has kept her in a brace for most of her short life and has required multiple surgeries.

This week, as SA Police announced a near complete border shutdown to shield SA from Victoria’s outbreak, the Dyers were told they were banned from going to Adelaide with Mabel to see her regular specialist, and would need to find a new one in Melbourne, a 414km drive away in the centre of the nation’s coronavirus crisis, or elsewhere in Victoria.

In a dramatic escalation of the rules, SA Police 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.

Out of desperation, Mabel’s mum Tiarnee wrote this letter to Mr Morrison, plaintively documenting a set of circumstances which explode the cliche that we are all in this together.

“I am writing to you to plead for your help,” Ms Dyer begins.

“Over the past six months we have been on a roller coaster of emotions, however the announcement by the SA Police Commissioner has sent us and many members of our community into a steep, downward spiral.

“Our community relies on many services in SA, including but not limited to medical services (obstetrics, paediatrics, orthopaedic surgeons, GPs, oncology, physiotherapists, mental health counsellors), education, farm ­machinery, maintenance, farm machinery parts, small business stock and supplies and employment.

“The border closure has impacted my husband and I for several reasons. My husband relies on business in Bordertown SA for agricultural service and supplies. Without these services he will need to travel 120km to get equivalent supplies and services that are available 40km away. We are unsure of what will happen next. I cross the border regularly to go to work.

“We have been told this week that Mabel’s specialist will not be able to examine our daughter for the foreseeable future and we may need to seek another specialist within our state as she may require more surgery.

“There are many other people like us on this highly populated border. Some will be wondering if they are going to survive medically and financially. We have done all that has been asked and still cross-community border members feel as though we are being punished.”

Jonathan Dyer told The Weekend Australian that the family bore no ill-will towards the Prime Minister but believed the states — in this case SA — needed to show more compassion and common sense in how they managed cross-border communities.

“The really silly thing is that we have had just two cases in the entire district and as a result of this hardening of the border lockdown we are being told to take our daughter into the one part of Australia that is teeming with coronavirus,” Mr Dyer said.

The family’s decision to take their case to the very top paid off, with the PM replying to the Dyers on Friday when their letter was ­received and following inquiries from The Weekend Australian.

“You have shone a light on an important issue,” Mr Morrison wrote. “Unfortunately, I have been hearing of several instances where state and territory border restrictions are impacting on some essential medical treatment for Australians.

“It is a fundamental right of Australians to access medical treatments. I don’t want Australians like Mabel to miss medical appointments which can lead to long-term health issues.”

Mr Morrison says in the letter he will raise Mabel’s case with the SA government, asking that they “urgently” make contact with the Dyers to resolve Mabel’s case.

“Mabel sounds like an extraordinary young girl,” the PM said.

“She, along with all Australian children, deserves the best treatment that our country can give.”

SA Premier Steven Marshall this week defended the border ­arrangements, saying his government was alarmed by the rise in infections in regional Victoria, with more than a dozen active cases along the border and around 50 in the Bendigo council area.

Victorian Nationals MP Emma Kealy, whose seat of Lowan covers far western Victoria, has written to Premier Daniel Andrews asking for increased assistance for border communities and urging him to raise the matter with the SA government.