Moree's Tammy Elbourne and her farmer husband have battled the drought times and fought hard to keep their kids at boarding school in Brisbane to give them the best opportunities.
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But the harsh border closure has created impossible heartache as the restrictions mean Tammy will not see her three children for up to 20 weeks. They won't be able to return for the next school holidays at their property on the Terry Hie Hie Road, and her eldest, her son, is sitting his final year exams.
The chief executive of Tourism Moree says the Queensland restrictions are "un-Australian". Her direct complaints to the office of the Queensland Deputy Premier only led to an altercation and an officer there called her "a bitch", she said.
Tammy's father also needs continuing cancer care in Brisbane.
If she was to try and see her children she'd have to stay in a Queensland Government-run quarantine facility for 14 days and pay almost $5000.
She says there are dozens of families in the Moree district with similiar stories.
"Last time I looked we were in a democratic country," Mrs Elbourne said. "It's terrible how they can just make these closures with no notice. I have three kids at school in Indooroopilly in Year 7, Year 9 and Year 12. If they came here in the holidays that means they couldn't go back to school until two weeks into term and if we go there we'd have to stay in two week's quarantine and we can't do that. My father, who has cancer, also can't go to Brisbane for medical care. This is all causing unnecessary distress. I phoned the Deputy Premier's office (Queensland) and got hung up on and sworn at by them."
The closure is also splitting families within the Moree district. People who live in Mungindi on the border and work in Moree, have to decide where they will reside from now on, some choosing to relocate to Moree.
Mrs Elbourne said there were no active COVID cases within 500km of Moree and didn't see why they were being discriminated against.
Queensland has announced it will not change the harsh border closure until there is no community transmission of COVID-19 in both NSW and Victoria.
"We are hoping some of the medical specialists we see in Brisbane will help get some sense into the Queensland Government and they were told they were looking into it. But who is looking into it?
"We've basically been told to 'shift our lives', but we invest so much in Queensland. We're not Victorians, this is not Sydney, these are unfair rules. Now we won't see our kids until the Christmas holidays. There are 20-30 families around here in the same boat."
John Ellicott
journalist and author
journalist and author
