National cabinet endorses plan for boarding students to cross borders

Rural boarding students have been given a reprieve with state Premiers supporting a national code for Covid-safe cross-border travel.

Bourke’s Charlie Mort, with his brother Barney and their kelpie, Barty, pictured last year when they were stranded at Geelong Grammar by border restrictions. Picture: Mark Stewart

After months of stress and separation for boarding families whose children cross state lines to attend school, cross-border travel for boarders and their parents will finally become easier following today’s endorsement by national cabinet of a National Code for Boarding School Students.

The code was tabled by Regional Education Minister Bridget McKenzie, and provides states and territories with principles to develop Covid-safe travel arrangements to help students and their families navigate border restrictions.

Senator McKenzie thanked all states and territories for backing the plan, and urged them to implement arrangements as soon as possible to help families plan travel during the Term 3 school holidays, which start tomorrow.

“While border closures and intrastate travel restrictions have helped contain the spread of Covid-19, it has unintentionally left some boarding students isolated and unable to receive the support and care of family, causing additional stress and anxiety during what is already a difficult time,” she said.

“Today’s decision is a win for commonsense. The National Code takes a clear, compassionate and practical approach to supporting the travel needs of boarding school students.”

The national code, posted on the federal department of education website today, states that Covid-safe travel will be the priority, with students and parents allowed to take the most direct route between a boarding school and home, as well as the return trip.

Jurisdictions will be responsible for implementing the Code in line with the relevant health advice.

About 1600 students across the nation cross a state or territory border to attend boarding school.

The code stipulates that boarding school students should not be impeded by border arrangements.

It states that a class of travel permit should be created for boarding school students and their caregivers, with these boarding students and staff provided an exemption to restrictions on movement within and between states.

States and territories must now all apply the code to their own border rules, and children and families making use of the code must comply with vaccination advice.

Sadly, the code comes too late for Year 12 student Charlie Mort.

Year 12 student Charlie Mort is now back at home on the family’s goat farm in western NSW, near Bourke. He was a boarder at Geelong Grammar but decided to finish school with an unscored VCE due to the stress of border closures. Picture: Supplied

Charlie, 18, lives on a goat property 150km west of Bourke, in western NSW, and was a boarding student at Geelong Grammar school in Victoria.

Until today.

He decided the stress of being separated from family, due to the lack of border-crossing travel exemption for students, was not worth the effort of completing his final year of school.

“I was always going to get an ATAR,” said Charlie, whose life plan has been thrown into disarray by border closures.

“It got to the point, we were in lockdown so long I just got sick of school and wanted to go home.”

He decided the stress was not worth pursuing an ATAR, and finished Year 12 at the end of term 3 with an unscored VCE.

“It is so much harder living at school knowing you can’t get home,” said Charlie, who is now safely at home on his family’s 24,280ha property, which is 1200km from the Geelong Grammar boarding campus.

He said he made the decision several months ago, hoping it would open up more opportunities.

“We weren’t in lockdown and borders were open then,” he said. “I wanted to go and see if I could get into a stock agent apprenticeship in South Australia.”

But, border closures have also blocked that option for Charlie, who is now biding his time before deciding what his life post-school will hold.

His mother, Michelle, said the year spent worrying about how she would get Charlie home from school each term, took a huge toll on the family.

“That inability to support your children when they are so far from home is devastating for a parent and a child,” she said.

Charlie and his brother, Barney, were in the media spotlight a year ago when they were stranded on the Geelong campus during the school holidays, because border closures at that time made it impossible for them to cross state lines.

At the time, Senator Perin Davey raised their plight in the Senate, and they were subsequently granted an exemption permit to cross the NSW border.

A year later, Charlie couldn’t face the same bleak prospect.

“The kids had already done all this last year and we thought it was terrible for Year 12s last year,” Michelle said. “The uncertainty of this year has been emotionally too hard.

“It got to the point that I couldn’t stand another term or month being worried about whether we could get Charlie home or not.”

Michelle is one of many interstate boarding school parents who have shared their stories with Senator Davey.

Senator Davey last week welcomed news that Federal Regional Education Minister Bridget McKenzie tabled the draft code to state education ministers and chief health officers, and was hopeful that national cabinet would endorse the plan today.