Border ban fracturing rural families

Currently, the permitted reasons for crossing the border are very limited. NSW border zone residents can only cross the border for an essential purpose, while Queensland residents can only enter the NSW border zone for the time necessary to complete an essential purpose.

For Tom and Monique Cush, who run cropping property Avymore halfway between the NSW town of Boomi and the Queensland town of Goondiwindi, the border restrictions are taking a toll on their family.

Their four children, aged one to seven, go to school, kindergarten and day care in Goondiwindi.

Their doctor, electrician, plumber and computer repairer are there, and the stores they use for parts for their farming business are there.

Two of their three employees also live over the border.

"The border ban being imposed by the Queensland Government is having a dire effect on my children and our family business and we feel we are being treated as outcasts by a state government that benefits from all our business in the Queensland town which we consider our hometown," Mrs Cush said.

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Mrs Cush said she couldn't take her kids to school because only children of essential workers were allowed to attend.

"In the next couple of weeks my daughter's got her prep orientation days and meeting the teachers in the classrooms and she's going to miss out on all of that.

"My son asks me every day if he can go to daycare to see his friends. They're all still there. We do everything in Goondiwindi.

"Back in the time when we had the border bubble, it allowed us into town - that's our town."

Mrs Cush said her husband recently travelled to Goondiwindi to pick up parts for the farm using his Z pass - an exemption for agribusiness workers - but couldn't get groceries as well.

"He's just come back from town to get parts and I asked him to pick up the Coles click-and-collect order.

"He told them that's what his purpose is in town and showed them his Z pass because he was collecting parts and they've told him he's allowed to come in to collect parts but he's not allowed to collect food, because if he wants to collect food he needs to fill in an XN pass.

"They interrogated him on the border as to why he can't drive an additional 120 kilometres to Moree to collect the part.

"The simple answer is, those parts were dropped in town to be repaired by the businesses we've used for the last 10 years to service our farm."

Tom and Monique are busy preparing for cotton planting in October, but with two of their three staff over the border, they say things have not been easy.

One lives in Goondiwindi, one lives near Toobeah, and the other lives on-farm.

Mrs Cush said when the hard border was instated, their staff couldn't go to work for two days.

"Essentially, preparing the farm for our cotton crop stopped because we had no tractor drivers for two days while they had to work out if they could come to work and still go back home without having to quarantine for 14 days.

"We're flat out doing ground prep and flood repair damage because we had that huge flood come through a couple of months ago which obviously damaged a lot of the irrigation country.

"We've had a lot of rain consistently, so it's only just dried up enough for us to really get in there and get everything ready for cotton planting.

"Our dams are full after the huge floods, so it's the first year in many years that we actually have a really good go at it."

An hour's drive west, a farmer from the NSW side of Mungindi has been having similar border woes.

He told Queensland Country Life he was heading to St George about 1.30pm on Tuesday to get some equipment repaired but was turned around at the border by police.

The farmer said he had his Z pass, so his understanding was he could go into Queensland and carry on with his normal farming business.

"I felt sorry for the police officer at the border because they were trying to make sense of the rules," he said.

"They were literally reading them as I was there, trying to work them out.

"I was just taking a water meter up to St George for some engineering work, so while that's essential to our business, they were saying it was not essential to Queensland, so that meant I couldn't go over.

"But the great irony is I'll go back tomorrow with a piece of paper that says 'F' (freight and logistics pass) on it instead of 'Z' and I'll be fine.

"I think that's the sort of bureaucracy that is really frustrating."

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