NSW backflips on tight border restrictions
NSW government is relaxing tight border restrictions, with a 10-day plan to reinstate 50km zone and ease pain for families and schoolchildren.
NSW is the third state in two days to backflip on tight border restrictions, with the border zone soon to be relaxed so residents can travel up to 50km from the NSW-Victoria boundary.
The loosened restrictions will come into effect within 10 days, allowing residents living in the border region to travel for work, education, medical supplies and care with a permit.
Currently border residents holding permits to enter NSW must remain within a 2.5km zone.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said that zone would be extended to 50km. It follows an exemption announced last week for agriculture workers to travel up to 100km from the border.
Mr Barilaro made the announcements in Albury this afternoon after hearing first-hand of the impact of the strict border closure on residents most affected.
“Over the next 10 days, the NSW Government will look to extend the ‘Border Zone’ from 2.5km back to the original 50km, with a couple of additional adjustments to give more freedom to those on both sides of the border,” he said.
He said Albury MP Justin Clancy would co-chair a Southern Borders Recovery Committee to look at the economic and social impacts of the border closure as well as a recovery package for the tourism industry.
“Further changes we are working towards include allowing the agriculture workforce to travel across the border, initially within a 100km radius, and creating quarantine areas closer to the border,” Mr Barilaro said.
A parent from Kerang, who The Weekly Times chose not to name, said the past two days managing remote learning had been “horrible” for her and her autistic son, who had been blocked from attending his Prep class across the border.
The single mother also has a two-year-old and a seven-week-old baby to look after.
“I don’t have any experience in this,” she said. “He went to school for first eight weeks and that is it. We went straight into lockdown.”
COVID restrictions at that time meant parents were not allowed on campus, so she had no knowledge of how lessons were delivered in his Prep class.
“The plan from this year was that he was to get an aide by now. All I know is that he had two other teachers helping with his normal teacher,” she said.
“I would like to see him back at school tomorrow if anything.
“I want to see my son succeed and not regress again.”
Victorian Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes welcomed the changes announced to the NSW and SA borders that allowed border communities to go about their daily lives with few restrictions.
“There will be further improvements that can be made, and I will continue to seek those improvements,” Ms Symes said.
Moama Anglican Grammar principal Carmel Spry said she heard the news through media reports and welcomed the return to the 50km border zone.
“It would be wonderful if we could return to where the border was,” she said. “That really allows close to all our students and staff to attend school.
“That means children in Kyabram, Rochester and all those areas can return, which is how we were operating before.”
More than 100 Moama Anglican Grammar students living in Victoria outside the border zone, including those of essential workers and with special learning needs, have been blocked from attending school since Monday.
Ms Spry said she’d like to see changes earlier than 10 days from now.
“It is still 10 days of operating with those students missing being at school with their teachers. It would be better if we could do it more quickly,” she said. “But that is certainly better than possibly being cut off long term.”
NSW’s backflip comes just hours after SA revoked its near total lockdown of its border with Victoria and a day after Queensland relented to pressure to allow agriculture workers entry from NSW.
Murray MP Helen Dalton said the change was overdue.
“We are one country that are supposed to all be in this together. So we should not be shutting regional state borders every time there is a COVID spike in a capital city,” she said.
“There are other ways to control the spread of this virus without destroying the livelihoods of country people.”
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