Sheryl Lowe, Naracoorte Community News
Border communities have been some of the hardest hit since the pandemic began in Australia early in 2020. Many are living and working in both states with life straddling the border on a daily basis. So perhaps it is no surprise they are now the lifeline for several thousand displaced South Australians unable to return home due to the current strict border controls between South Australia and Victoria.
The office of Member for MacKillop Nick McBride MP is close to the South Australian/Victoria border and he and his staff know first-hand the struggles of the border communities.
An ever-changing set of rules and procedures has been a constant in the lives of border communities, regular testing for the coronavirus and re-applying for essential travel passes with criteria sometimes changing by the day or hour.
The most recent Direction from SAPOL doesn’t recognize returning home or relocating to South Australia as essential travel. This has created an additional raft of problems for returning South Australians and created a ‘new homeless’ at the connecting border.
Mr. McBride asked South Australia’s Premier Steven Marshall at the recent Liberal party meeting, “there are 4000 people at our borders trying to get home, where are the resources to bring South Australians home?”
It has been reported the Premier responded with a terse reply, a hand gesture and a reference to Mr. McBride’s recent decision to cross the floor in parliament, causing Mr. McBride to re-think his position with the Liberal Party.
Mr.McBride crossed the floor of the South Australian State Parliament last week, preventing his own Liberal Party from extending its state emergency COVID powers to April 30 next year – which would be until after the next state election.
Just days before the interaction with the Premier, Mr. McBride said on 5THE FM radio, our border communities have done it tough. “They have been tested more often than any other section of our community, more often than essential workers, frontline workers and they have willingly done it all.”
“And there has not been one positive case among them.”
“Last year in 2020, they had fight. You could see it. They’d say to me and my staff, we can do this.”
“But now that’s changed. They don’t have that fight, they’re emotional, they tear up easily. The fight has gone out of them. It’s gone on too long and yet they continue to do what is asked of them.”
“They (officials) talk about rings of steel around communities. If ever there was a ring of steel, it is our border communities. Perhaps not a ring of steel, but a line of steel. They have kept South Australians safe. We owe them.”
Combined churches at the border town of Kaniva have become a lifeline for many displaced South Australians with offers of the use of church hall toilets, food and personal care packages from the Salvation Army for ‘desperate’ people. Local businesses and members of the community have provided items for the packages.
One of the church representatives put a human face to it saying to us, some families are staying in motels, sometimes up to 10 days at their own expense while they wait for an answer from SA Health. They are using valuable resources they really can’t spare. Others don’t have the resources at all and are sleeping on hall floors and in parks.
“The caravan park has no on-site facilities so people with-out their own caravans or tents are unable to stay there.”
“The constantly changing restrictions cause so many problems. One lady boarded a V-Line bus in Victoria to return home to South Australia, she had all the appropriate paperwork, but when she got to the South Australian border the conditions had changed and her paperwork wasn’t accepted. She had to get off the bus and find accommodation in Kaniva and re-apply.”
“My own family were tested in Victoria for Covid because we have to cross into South Australia to our farm but the tests weren’t accepted by the South Australian Government so we had to be re-tested in South Australia to qualify for an essential travel pass,” she said.
“There’s just zero compassion for the displaced or for us.”
“The last lockdown hurt the most, we are exhausted, it’s ridiculous to put people through this.”
She went on to explain that most of the people stuck at the border have done the right thing, but the conditions keep changing. “they’re emotional, they’re drained.”
“It’s the delays in processing the passes, that’s the problem.”
“These people are willing to be tested, to isolate when they get home, they’re happy to do the right thing but the processing is the problem.”
“Some people are not willing to share their heartbreak and some stories we can’t share due to confidentiality, but cancer treatments have been missed, jobs lost, financial distress and then there’s on-going emotional toll.”
“She went on to say, Mr. McBride and the Cross Border Group have been wonderful. I just hope other MP’s support Mr. McBride.”
On 5THE FM Mr. McBride said, “I stand by the Liberal Government, SAPOL and SA Health, they’ve done a marvellous job keeping South Australians safe during this pandemic and I won’t go back on that, but I think our regions have done it tough.”
Mr. McBride said he has never, and still doesn’t advocate to open up the whole state and put people at risk but “for example, we get a case at Modbury and we lock down the whole state, there has to be a better way.”
“Our border communities have been South Australia’s saving grace.”
Mr. McBride issued the following press release on Monday 13th September, “I note speculation in the media that I am considering becoming an Independent. I do not wish to make any further comment at this stage, other than to indicate that I will continue to engage with my constituents to ascertain their opinions on a variety of matters.”
South Australia’s Police Commissioner Grant Stevens announced on Thursday 16th September, there would be no changes to the border restrictions due to the on-going and very real threat the increasing numbers of cases of the Delta variant in New South Wales and Victoria have on our state, and the safety of all South Australians is the priority.
This article appeared in Naracoorte Community News, 22 September 2021.
Related story: McBride crosses floor for border community
