NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has addressed her government’s emerging border stoush with Queensland.
Border communities have called for checkpoints to moved away from their towns as traffic congestion and mass delay continues.
Ms Berejiklian told reporters this morning that the first she’d heard of Queensland wanting the border moved further south was today.
“NSW has always had open borders with Queensland so that’s an issue for the Queensland government,” she said.
Ms Berejiklian said she’d seen media reports of Queensland asking her to move the border south of the Tweed River, where the M1 is wider and could potentially allow cars to move through quicker.
(Picture: Richard Gosling/NCA Newswire)
“But it was only this morning that I got a very short text from the Queensland Premier about the matter and we’re happy to engage but we’re happy to consider all options,” she said.
“I do not believe we should move the border, if anything it should be moved north … there’s no infection in northern NSW.
“We’re unclear as to what the Queensland government is asking us to do. I’ve heard from the media that I’m receiving a letter so I look forward to receiving that letter.”
Down south, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he had spoken with Ms Berejiklian yesterday about NSW’s tightened restrictions on the Victorian border that come into effect tonight.
(Picture: Simon Dallinger/NCA Newswire)
Mr Andrews said his counterpart had given him assurances “for freight, for the sorts of essential movement that relates to the fact that many of these border towns are in fact one town (such as) Albury-Wodonga, Mildura, Wentworth”.
“We often provide services into southern NSW, people often have to travel for work,” he said.
“I know there will be some practical issues that people have to work through but I have got an open line of communication … and will continue to work with her to make a different set of circumstances just a little easier.”
He conceded it “won’t be easy but I can understand why Premier Berejiklian has made the decisions she has made”. “Let’s work together and make them as practical as we can, make them as common sense as we can,” he said.
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