Victorian-based service station owner Peter Anderson says NSW border restrictions that force staff to fly into the state, rather than drive, risk spreading the coronavirus and will obstruct the creation of 40 jobs at a new centre being built in the regional city of Wagga Wagga.
The Anderson family business, APCO Service Stations, which owns 26 centres in Victoria, is getting to the “pointy end of the job” building a petrol station and an attached convenience store across the NSW border in Wagga.
Requests by the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association for APCO’s Geelong-based project manager David Jeffreys to drive to Wagga bounced between the NSW Health, Treasury and Small Business departments for weeks, before the latest letter was sent to Health Minister Brad Hazzard on August 14.
“It’s just bureaucracy gone mad,” Mr Anderson said on Friday. “We can get a permit but they will only let me through via Sydney airport.
“I would have to drive from Geelong down to Melbourne airport, come into contact with people on the flight, and at Sydney international airport, hire a car, drive 500 kilometres to Wagga, drive back to Sydney, then fly back to Melbourne.
“How many hundreds of people would I come into contact with?
“I refuse to risk my staff that way. The last thing I want is one of our people getting infected and it getting into our office.”
Under NSW’s COVID-19 rules, the almost-finished service station is a critical services construction project and eligible for a special permit to cross the border by air.
Mr Anderson is offering that Mr Jeffreys have a COVID-19 test before he leaves Geelong and isolate at home until the result is known, drive to Wangaratta where he would stay overnight in a hotel room, before completing the drive to Wagga.
‘No sense’
“I’m not getting any answers and no sense out of the NSW government whatsoever,” Mr Anderson said.
The $5.5 million project site is due to be handed over by the builder for stock filling on September 24. The service station with IGA Express is due to open in mid-October.
Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association chief executive Mark McKenzie said the case highlighted the slow and bureaucratic process in granting border crossing approvals.
“We’ve been at this for two weeks now,” Mr McKenzie said. “The business is expanding at a time when the economy needs jobs.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been in a tussle with state and territory leaders to ease their border closures and restrictions, particularly Queensland, South Australia and West Australia.
Mr Morrison said the border restrictions between NSW and Victoria had been agreed to by the premiers of the two states and himself.
“We worked daily, literally daily, to deal with any disruption, needless disruption that is occurring because of those borders, but they are not permanent borders,” Mr Morrison said on Friday.
“And I’m sure both premiers, like I, look forward to the time when they can be removed and life can go back to normal.”
The latest Commonwealth Bank Flash Purchasing Manager Index shows services activity declined in August, due to the re-introduction of the Melbourne lockdown and border restrictions across various in states.
Extracted in full: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/bureaucracy-gone-mad-nsw-vic-border-hurdle-risks-health-and-jobs-20200821-p55o0i
