South Australia’s Police Commissioner has stepped in to change cross-border travel rules after an Adelaide anaesthetist was shocked to find himself forced into home quarantine because of a recent work trip to Broken Hill.
Key points:
- Anaesthetist Roger Capps recently travelled to Broken Hill for work
- He said he was told he would have no trouble coming home to Adelaide
- SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens says cross-border travel arrangements will change as a result of his situation
Roger Capps called ABC Radio Adelaide on Wednesday morning to highlight his situation after he and his wife recently travelled to the silver city at the end of June because of a local need for anaesthetic specialist cover.
South Australia currently has travel restrictions in place with New South Wales because of that state’s coronavirus situation, but exemptions apply to cross-border community members inside a 100-kilometre buffer zone that includes Broken Hill.
Dr Capps said he believed that exemption applied to him, and was told by authorities there would be no issue getting back into SA after his work in Broken Hill was done.
“They very clearly said, ‘No, it is free, it’s unrestricted’,” he said.
“And so my wife and I went in all good faith to Broken Hill to provide this service.”
But upon attempting to return home, Dr Capps said he was repeatedly thwarted, even after he submitted “about five” applications for a cross-border crossing and then sought other means of returning.
“They were all declined … there was no explanation for that at the time,” he said.
“We were left with this situation of coming back to South Australia and not being approved for entry.”
Dr Capps said he was eventually informed he was not entitled to exemptions as an essential traveller and that the cross-border community exemption only applied to those living in the buffer zone on either side of the border — not to people travelling from Adelaide to NSW cross-border communities and then back.
“Broken Hill needs people to go there and they were astounded when I told them I’d been rejected.
“An anaesthetist working in the other operating theatre but with a Broken Hill address could come to South Australia without a restriction but I couldn’t.”
Upon completion of his work in Broken Hill, Dr Capps said it was “very frustrating” to be told he would need to enter quarantine upon his return to Adelaide and that he would need to “go home, you get your swabs [and enter] isolation for a fortnight”.
He and his wife returned to Adelaide on Monday and have been in home quarantine since then.
In response to Dr Capps’s phone call, SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens told ABC Radio it was his understanding “the cross-border arrangement applies both ways” and that anyone who travelled into Broken Hill from SA would be able to “come back”.
But he later clarified that was not the case and that the current arrangement only applies to people living in the buffer zone.
“We have a 100-kilometre buffer into NSW that allows people who live in those regional communities inside of NSW to be able to attend and participate in the normal sorts of things they would travel into SA for without any specific restriction,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
“The reason for this is that the whole intent, at the early stages of introducing these cross-border bubbles and border restrictions, is to slow down movement from South Australia into and out of jurisdictions we have concerns about in relation to COVID spread.”
Commissioner Stevens said Dr Capps’s case had highlighted an inconsistency in the existing travel direction which was now being rectified.
“We’d be hopeful that that change occurs within the next day or two.”
In the meantime, before the direction is changed, Commissioner Stevens said anyone who lives in SA and wants to travel to Broken Hill would be granted an exemption to existing rules allowing them to do so.
“If you need to visit somebody in Broken Hill, you will be provided an exemption until the direction changes,” he said.
Loading form…