Coronavirus: Not steaming, drowning on empty Murray River
The Murray River twin towns of Echuca and Moama have become the innocent victims of the latest COVID-19 lockdown, despite not recording any cases of infection,
The Murray River twin towns of Echuca and Moama have become the innocent victims of the latest COVID-19 lockdown, despite not recording any cases of infection.
Communities on both sides of the border have been paralysed socially and face economic ruin as a consequence of being the collateral damage from NSW and Victorian state decisions.
Living and working on the NSW side of the river, Murray River Council mayor Chris Bilkey said the NSW government needed to look at issuing a substantial support package if local businesses were to survive another four to six weeks of lockdown.
He said the region was dependent on trade from Victoria, making it difficult for residents and businesses to accept being cut off when there have been no local COVID-19 cases in the area.
“It brings a grimace to the faces of people here when they contemplate the seeming injustice of it,” Mr Bilkey said.
“We have to find a way to open up the visitation to border regions like ours on the NSW side, at least to regional Victorians.”
Murray Regional Tourism chief executive Mark Francis said the states’ lockdown decisions had caused a two-speed economy along the river.
“The problem for the Murray is that any time something happens in Sydney or Melbourne, we’re bearing the brunt,” he said.
“It can’t continue on this way, the businesses won’t survive.” He said the local economy had boomed between the lifting of the Victorian restrictions in late 2020 and the announcement of new border closures on New Year’s Eve because many people wanted to go on holiday but weren’t able to travel overseas.
“After (the Victorians) had to leave, we went from 100 per cent to zero,” he said, adding that local businesses had recorded “$170m in losses from January alone”.
Mr Francis said the region needed the Victorian government to allow people to enter the border bubble because of the towns’ economic ties, with the Victorian side affected by accommodation on the NSW side now being inaccessible.
Murray River Paddlesteamers director Chris Burgess, brother of managing director Rohan, also wants the Victorian government to allow Victorians to cross over the border into the bubble zone.
He said businesses wouldn’t survive if they missed out on the peak summer season, after the brief December boom made many businesses ineligible for government support through JobKeeper.
“There’s no other tourist area in Victoria which is as affected by them closing the border,” he said.
He said he had spoken to NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard about the need to use both sides of the river but hadn’t been able to speak to anyone in the Victorian government.
“We’re not asking to be able to go to Sydney,” Mr Burgess said. “This decision could open up the whole Murray tourism industry.”
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