Despite relaxed coronavirus border restrictions, Melburnians still stranded in Sydney

Amid news nine Australian Open tennis crew – including one player – tested positive to COVID-19, Melburnians stranded in Sydney say they are confused about why they are unable to return home.

Lyrian and Steven Fleming-Parsley, with three-year-old son Joachim, cannot return to Melbourne from Sydney. Picture: Jane Dempster

Melbourne couple Lyrian and Steven Fleming-Parsley didn’t mind holing up in Greater Sydney with their three-year-old son, Joachim, after Victoria’s borders were closed on December 31.

After all, the family was staying with Ms Fleming-Parsley’s parents in Sydney’s western suburb of Seven Hills, could work remotely and access childcare.

But after the Victorian state government defended their decision to allow Australian Open tennis players and crew into town — who on Monday were linked with nine positive COVID-19 cases — Ms Fleming-Parsley said it was “unfair” the government would not support more Victorians to come home.

“They are letting 1000-plus tennis players come in for a sporting event and they can‘t find a way for us to get home,” the 40-year-old said. “There are less than 10 cases in Sydney and no cases in Melbourne … you can’t apply different rules for tennis players and then not let people go home.

It is a bit irritating given we are stuck in Greater Sydney and can’t get home to Melbourne and we are not coming from UK/Europe/USA yet loads of tennis people can come in from highly infected areas 🤔 https://t.co/2nupVzsJHk

— LyrianFlemingParsley (@lyrianfleming) January 15, 2021

“It just does not seem proportionate that there is actually no legal way for us to get home … it does feel a bit unfair given they can find a path for tennis players to get (to Melbourne) but not for us to get home.”

The Victorian state government relaxed border restrictions with some parts of Greater Sydney on Monday, but Ms Fleming-­Parsley’s family is located in Blacktown City, one of 10 local government areas still classified as “red zones”, and they cannot return to their home in Prahran in Melbourne’s inner southeast.

“My first reaction is that it’s disappointing but I am hopeful it means there will be a pathway home for the restricted LGAs quite quickly and in particular the LGAs that don’t have recent or high numbers of COVID transmission,” she said.

There were no cases of locally acquired coronavirus cases reported in NSW on Monday. On Sunday, six infections were linked with community transmission and identified as close contacts of a western Sydney man whom health authorities believed was tied to the Berala BWS outbreak.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday reaffirmed her rebuke of border closures at the weekend, telling 2GB radio: “If the federal health authorities have deemed there isn’t a single place in Australia that’s a hotspot, why should any premier determine what is a hotspot and what isn’t?

“We have to go by the science, we have to go by the data … to impact thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lives by going overboard, I don’t think that is the way to do it,” Ms Berejiklian said.

On Monday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the “red zone” status of the 10 LGAs in Sydney — Blacktown City, Burwood, Canada Bay City, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield City, Inner West, Liverpool City, Parramatta City and Strathfield Municipality — would be reviewed daily.