Australian state border restrictions

[MARTINE]

Agreed ….. with the whole country padlocked theres only so many grey nomads who could be in places like Broome… surely mining tourism will start to pressure

 

[jb747]

Maybe check the local criminal groups if there is anyone starting a people smuggling business.

Maybe join the local criminals.…

Not to over look the obvious but with borders shut some businesses are reporting worker shortages in some areas. So we may see start to see illegal workers crossing the border from NSW to QLD to fill the gaps.

If they’ve lost substantial parts of the customer base, then maybe they don’t need the workers anyway. When NSW closed the border to Victoria in mid 2020, there was no consideration for locals, or any real border bubble. They soon found out that many of their hospital staff came from the south. NSW businesses lost about 60% of their customer base, because it actually includes the regions to the south, and not just Wodonga. The regions to the north gravitate to Wagga, not Albury, so there was less buffer than you might expect.

I have no problem with lock downs, but un-targeted state-wide shutdowns remind me of WWII carpet bombing. Destructive, but ineffective in the long run.

 

[eastwest101]

Yes, plenty but patrolled by SAPOL.
If you are caught not only are you fined but you will be detained for 14 days.

Just a hypothetical - if arrested by SAPOL on a back road going from Broken Hill to Adelaide where would they take you after being arrested? Probably to the Adelaide police station to be charged, and once charged and provided bail is made where would you end up? Adelaide. As someone else mentioned - its all a cost-benefit analysis.....


Here is another unintended consequence of state border closures:

Adelaide family play the waiting game in Broken Hill after failed trip home to SA

A mother, her former partner, and their young son are among about 20 South Australians stranded at a Broken Hill caravan park, unable to return home because of the state's lockdown.

www.abc.net.au

And here is an absolute doozy back on the 7th July courtesy of the SA state government, apparently anaesthetists aren't essential travelers...

Coronavirus cross-border confusion exposed by anaesthetist's 'mind-boggling' treatment

SA authorities are in the process of updating travel restrictions for SA residents travelling to Broken Hill and other NSW cross-border communities, after an Adelaide anaesthetist was left in a state of confusion.

www.abc.net.au

So this inconsistency all boils down to what it says on a person's drivers licence, exact same levels of exposure, same travel patterns and occupation and risk but completely different outcomes depending on whether that medical professional has an NSW address on their driver's licence or a SA address on their driver's licence.

I would bet the local news of all border communities around Australia would be full of similar stupid stories.

 

[twiningb]

"unintended"

 

[Happy Dude]

Not to over look the obvious but with borders shut some businesses are reporting worker shortages in some areas. So we may see start to see illegal workers crossing the border from NSW to QLD to fill the gaps.

Although there's no hard borders, some of the NSW regional towns and Canberra are anxious the SYD tradies, banned from worksites there, will come looking for work.... and bring covid with them.

 

[jase05]

Just a hypothetical - if arrested by SAPOL on a back road going from Broken Hill to Adelaide where would they take you after being arrested? Probably to the Adelaide police station to be charged, and once charged and provided bail is made where would you end up? Adelaide. As someone else mentioned - its all a cost-benefit analysis.....

Yes, but this person in the article needed to get back in straight away presumably for work?
In your hypothetical they would be placed in HQ for 2 weeks at their expense

 

[jase05]

Victoria taking matters into their own hands if Gladys won’t

Victoria bursts the NSW border bubble​

The municipalities of:

• Wagga Wagga
• Hay
• Lockhart
• Murrumbidgee

… will no longer be in the Victorian-NSW border bubble.

Here’s what Mr Andrews said about that:

"If you want to travel to Victoria from those four local government areas, you would need a permit.
"We’re only granting permits for those who are approved workers.
"And even only then when it is absolutely necessary.
"I take no pleasure in having to essentially lock out those four communities from Victoria, but there’s a refusal to lock people in Sydney into Sydney, so I have no choice but to make these changes.
"I will foreshadow with you that there will be further border changes.
"I’m not in a place to announce those today but I’ll announce those as soon as we can.
"We have to do everything we can to keep this virus out of our state and it’s obviously regrettable that we’ve had to do that all the way down at the Murray but we’ll do what we can.
“I can’t control the settings in capital cities other than our own but these are the rules and these are the changes that we’ve made.”

 

[mviy]

Victoria taking matters into their own hands if Gladys won’t

Well that's one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is that Victoria has a megalomaniac Premier obsessed with COVID-zero making a political stunt. There's zero reason to stop border communities travelling to other border communities interstate. Unnecessary restrictions needlessly put lives at risk and affect livelihoods.

 

[bcworld]

Well that's one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is that Victoria has a megalomaniac Premier obsessed with COVID-zero making a political stunt.

Nonsense. They need to do whatever they can to limit the possibility for border incursions. Despite being a fan of 'there must be another option' I've never once seen you describe what this alternative to covid zero is. So please do. NSW tried the TTI approach and it has dramatically failed. So what is the alternative approach?

 

[jase05]

Well that's one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is that Victoria has a megalomaniac Premier obsessed with COVID-zero making a political stunt. There's zero reason to stop border communities travelling to other border communities interstate. Unnecessary restrictions needlessly put lives at risk and affect livelihoods.

More cases today in regional NSW wasn’t there?
Its clearly not contained to just Sydney now and as much as I don’t like Andrews he is simply stating that if NSW cant stop their people moving around he can’t take the risk of those people ending up in Victoria

 

[dajop]

Well that's one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is that Victoria has a megalomaniac Premier obsessed with COVID-zero making a political stunt. There's zero reason to stop border communities travelling to other border communities interstate. Unnecessary restrictions needlessly put lives at risk and affect livelihoods.

Although if you look at a map of LGA’s these are all not LGAs bordering Victoria, but LGAs that are next to border LGAs. Seems quite pragmatic to me rather than a sign of megalomania. Nothing stopping people going from Wagga to Albury (obviously Dan doesn’t have that power) , but they are prevented from travelling to Wodonga.

 

[jakeseven7]

Nonsense. They need to do whatever they can to limit the possibility for border incursions. Despite being a fan of 'there must be another option' I've never once seen you describe what this alternative to covid zero is. So please do. NSW tried the TTI approach and it has dramatically failed. So what is the alternative approach?

Sadly agree but only because of our appallingly low vaccination rates.

 

[mviy]

If VIC's contact tracing is still hopeless he should fix that rather than criticising NSW.

This zero tolerance for risk is causing so much grief to so many. I don't live in regional area so this doesn't affect me, but restrictions on regional communities cause a lot of grief for these communities including for basic things like routine medical appointments.

 

[jakeseven7]

If VIC's contact tracing is still hopeless he should fix that rather than criticising NSW.

This zero tolerance for risk is causing so much grief to so many. I don't live in regional area so this doesn't affect me, but restrictions on regional communities cause a lot of grief for these communities including for basic things like routine medical appointments.

No one has said VIC’s contact tracing is hopeless… in fact it’s equally good as NSW (which used to be held up as the best) and NSW has unfortunately demonstrated how quickly Delta can overwhelm your contact tracing - they are days and days behind now, they’ve lost control.

I know it’s frustrating I feel the same as you but unfortunately it’s our horrid reality until our population decides to get vaccinated… everyone in Sydney 18+ has been advised to get vaccinated ASAP - I think that should be Australia wide advice personally…

 

[bcworld]

If VIC's contact tracing is still hopeless

It demonstrably isn't. Have you not seen what they just did? It seems perhaps you'd rather just trot out the same old tropes.

 

[mviy]

It demonstrably isn't. Have you not seen what they just did? It seems perhaps you'd rather just trot out the same old tropes.

They didn’t do their job without also doing a lockdown of the whole state despite most of regional Victoria having zero cases and some areas having had no cases at all this year.

 

[Port Power]

If VIC's contact tracing is still hopeless he should fix that rather than criticising NSW.

This zero tolerance for risk is causing so much grief to so many. I don't live in regional area so this doesn't affect me, but restrictions on regional communities cause a lot of grief for these communities including for basic things like routine medical appointments.

Contact tracing doesn’t stop an infected person carrying the virus across a state border and infecting others. Strict lockdowns also don’t stop people attending urgent medical appointments or seeing their GP.

If Sydney brought their stocks of AZ out of storage and vaccinated at least everyone over 50 for starters, that would be a huge help. Possibly everyone over 45 too with the current risk analysis.

 

[dajop]

They didn’t do their job without also doing a lockdown of the whole state despite most of regional Victoria having zero cases and some areas having had no cases at all this year.

Oh for goodness sake….. just look at what happened in this particular instance rather than looking to L what happened earlier in the year. Vic govt said they would lift lockdown early in regional VIC if there was no evidence of spread or significant numbers of primary contacts in regional Vic. Unfortunately due to the MCG spread there were multiple cases in regional Vic and the “hopeless” contact tracers identified primary contacts from Mildura to Mallacoota and everywhere in between.

 

[bcworld]

They didn’t do their job without also doing a lockdown of the whole state despite most of regional Victoria having zero cases and some areas having had no cases at all this year.

Unlike other outbreaks this one did actually quickly disperse from metro Melbourne. Mooraboolshire, Mildura, Phillip Island, the Bellarine, Gippsland. Were you looking at a different outbreak? SA took the same approach...their lockdown ends tonight too.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I’m watching this all unfold from DRW.
I’m from Regional NSW and I arrived yesterday.
Flight SYD-DRW
The flight was truly disturbing
There were multiple passengers on there who live and work in Sydney but have family in Perth and the only way for them to get back to WA is to fly to Darwin and do 14 days quarantine at Howard Springs at own expense and then fly to PER.
One guy tried 4 times to get an exemption to fly SYD-PER as his mum is having cancer surgery and was rejected so opted for the DRW quarantine then off to PER.
I don’t think I know what it is to be Australian anymore.
The federation feels broken