The people affected, the opposition and the Greens only found out when they contacted The Sunday Age.
“While the Victorian Government is not considering making free payments to Victorians who were unable to travel home during this period, it does recognize the distress and disruption generally created by border restrictions,” he said. say the government in response to the ombudsman.
“It also recognizes the frustration and challenges that people experienced when trying to get an exemption.”
The government did not directly respond to questions from The Sunday Age. A spokesman said the border closure was necessary due to the ferocity of the Delta outbreak in NSW, the risk of incursion and low vaccination rates at the time. The government had also warned against travel to NSW.
“We did everything we could at the time to remind Victorians of the risk we faced … but we also recognize it was a very difficult time for many interstate Victorians.”
Cars line up on the Victorian border. Credit: Jason Robbins
Garcia’s application to enter Victoria was repeatedly rejected, or lapsed, with no one to contact for proper guidance.
Residents applying for a permit had to specify the date they planned to cross the border. The date often elapses before processing the request, which cancels it.
“What would make me happy is for them to say: ‘We made a mistake, the processes must be improved, we recognize that empathy has not been shown to people, and in the future this will never happen again,'” he said. Garcia said.
“That’s all, I’m not reaching out for money. I don’t want compensation.”
He has not received an apology from the government, although some others have by email.
The trustee is still considering the government’s response.
Once completed, as part of a two-year review of the government’s progress on the recommendations of all its reports, it will be tabled in parliament. Glass declined to comment until then.
In his report last year, Glass said discretion under the forceful system was unnecessarily limited. Staff had 30 to 60 seconds to process requests, most of which never even reached a decision maker, with only 8% of waivers approved.
The government gave people just 12 hours to cross the border before it closed on July 20, a restriction that remained in place even after Victoria’s infection rate eclipsed NSW’s.
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The opposition has long criticized the government during the pandemic. Labor has since changed tack with new, more infectious strains of COVID-19 and high two-dose vaccination rates, acknowledging ahead of November’s state election that public acceptance of the mandates has waned.
Shadow health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said on Saturday the border closure was the “cruelest and most inept of many knee-jerk decisions” and had caused unnecessary suffering.
Greens health spokesman Dr Tim Read said there was no need to keep residents out of Victoria once the virus spread in the state.
“An apology and compensation, especially for those on low incomes who were paying rent in two states, would be the least the government could do.”
Melbourne dad Clint Fisher ended up living in a caravan park away from work for six weeks at Scotts Head on the NSW north coast after his car broke down when the Delta Variant let go for the first time.
He requested to go home, which everyone described as a confusing process, when his car was fixed, but his request repeatedly expired before they were served.
“I was lucky enough to be in a beautiful place and surf and all that. I was probably one of the lucky ones and I still found it incredibly frustrating and distressing because I didn’t know when I was going to see my family again.”
Fisher did not take part in the ombudsman’s investigation and received no apology, which he was satisfied with, accepting the need to close the border.
Melbourne woman Jo Howard, who was on a working holiday in northern NSW when the state was cut off, has received an apology from the government.
He waited for a permit for weeks at the border in a cheap studio. Doubly vaccinated and with a negative PCR result every other day, Howard was frustrated that she couldn’t drive home without stopping to self-quarantine.
“The problem was bureaucracy,” Howard said. “The difficulty for everybody was not knowing… Not knowing where it’s going to end up, I think that’s what started to get to me, in the end.”
Howard, who did not take part in the ombudsman’s inquiry, has put those feelings behind him. He said he expected nothing more than the apology email he received.
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