ACT residents trapped at NSW-Victoria border after overnight changes to travel restrictions
Canberrans who were granted permits to return home from Victoria were turned back at the Victoria-New South Wales border on Friday due to a serious problem with overnight changes to NSW’s travel restrictions, prompting the ACT to make urgent representations to Gladys Berejiklian and Scott Morrison.
The NSW government made last-minute changes to its travel restrictions on Thursday night, mandating that all NSW residents coming home from Victoria must travel through Sydney Airport and go immediately into hotel quarantine for 14 days at their own expense.
Border communities were exempt, but not ACT residents who had already been granted permission to transit through NSW while returning from Victoria to Canberra.
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The change caused police at the border to deny re-entry into NSW to ACT residents, regardless of whether they had permits to return to Canberra.
The ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, has taken up the issue with the NSW premier and the prime minister, seeking urgent action.
The ACT Government is scrambling to help dozens of Canberrans who have permission to return home but have been left stranded at the NSW-Victoria border https://t.co/3fy172N9Ss pic.twitter.com/RuncP6XqGJ
— The-RiotACT.com (@The_RiotACT) August 7, 2020
“We are aware that there is currently a serious border restriction problem for people wishing to travel by road from Victoria, through NSW, to the ACT,” a spokeswoman for Barr said.
“We have significant concerns that ACT residents, or those with an exemption (such as federal MPs), to enter the ACT are no longer allowed to transit through NSW.
“These concerns have been urgently raised with the NSW Premier’s office and the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Health worker Anne Cahill Lambert said she was trapped at the border for four hours before deciding to return to Victoria as darkness fell, with temperatures near freezing and heavy rain falling.
Cahill was trying to return to Canberra with her husband, also a health worker, and their dog, after working in north-east Victoria.
I am at the NSW/Vic border with relevant passes to transit and return home but NSW has changed the rules since passes issued. Setting up a refugee camp. @VictorianCHO @ACTHealth @ABarrMLA #covid @RachelSS_MLA pic.twitter.com/zMJxCoM9h0
— Anne CL (@ACLambert) August 7, 2020
Both she and her husband were granted permits to return from Victoria by both the ACT and NSW governments, and had agreed to enter two-week home quarantine in Canberra.
Cahill Lambert received approval to return home from the ACT government on Monday and from the NSW government on Wednesday.
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But when she arrived at the border on Friday, she was told the new directive meant she had to drive back into Victoria, fly to Sydney airport, quarantine in Sydney and then return to Canberra.
She said she was far from alone.
“There are hordes of Canberra people, they’ve gone into Wodonga waiting for this to be resolved,” she told the Guardian on the phone from the border.
The NSW change enforces a regime that appears at odds with the current ACT health advice.
The ACT government has advised its residents not to travel to greater Sydney, because it is considered a hotspot. The ACT has been Covid-19 free for almost a month.
“I think the public health initiatives are terrific, but this is just madness,” Cahill Lambert said.
The NSW premier has been contacted for comment.
