Call for border test and vaccination site

Tightening border restrictions between South Australia and Victoria has fuelled a call to speed-up establishing COVID-19 testing and vaccination facilities at a major truck stop at Nhill.

Member for Lowan Emma Kealy has written to the State Government about an urgent need to develop a Western Victorian testing site and pop-up vaccination centre on the Victorian side of the border.

She said apart from allowing critical transport traffic to move more freely across the border, a dual-purpose centre would also be of benefit for cross-border communities trying to navigate different state rules and help lift lagging vaccination rates in far western Victoria.

Ms Kealy wrote to Health Minister Martin Foley on Monday in response to everchanging testing protocols forcing truck drivers earlier this week to turn around at the South Australian border and travel back to Horsham for COVID-19 tests. Interstate truck drivers, required to follow strict rules, back-tracked about 150 kilometres before parking several prime-movers around Wimmera Base Hospital while they underwent testing.

“We must urgently establish a site this side of the border to support critical logistics,” Ms Kealy said.

“For these truck drivers there was nowhere else to go between Horsham and the border to get the testing they required as regular interstate travellers, which is constantly changing.

“I’ve heard a positive response to this request and am hopeful of an announcement soon. Time is of the essence.”

Ms Kealy said a South Australian government announcement that COVID-19 vaccination would be mandatory for entry into the state from September 24, combined with a lack of timely vaccination opportunities in the state’s far west, added further pressure to border-community circumstances.

“While we have successfully lobbied for border community members to be exempt from this deadline, which has given these residents more time, there is little doubt this will be a delay only, not a permanent exemption,” she said.

“This has reached a crisis point. Many locals have reported the earliest they can get an appointment to be vaccinated is October, meaning those unable to be vaccinated could face being cut off from their jobs, school and essential services such as supermarkets, their GP and petrol stations.”

Constantly changing crossborder health-exemption travelling rules has also created significant concern in the Wimmera’s west.

Some people with a need to cross the border for health or family-health reasons have been left stranded and sleeping in cars for two to three nights.

The circumstance has attracted attention from a churchbased network with Kaniva Uniting Church pastor Damien Tann leading a relief effort to support stranded travellers.