'Get back to being Australians': Katrina Humphries calls for compassion for border communities

It was announced on Monday afternoon that NSW residents in Mungindi would be allowed to access the town's hospital again, having been shut out for two weeks after Queensland closed the border.

Cr Humphries said it was ridiculous locals hadn't been able to make the short trip over the Barwon River, and it caused massive headaches for families in the region.

"It's frightening for people when they're not able to get medical care, but it's also extremely frustrating because a lot of families were then split up from people that were in long-term care," she said.

"So there's real, everyday life issues around not having a hospital close by."

Problems with the border go beyond just the hospital though, with Cr Humphries arguing its unsustainable for Mungindi residents to travel an hour and a half to Moree for services they could normally access in their own town.

Given there has been no COVID in Mungindi throughout the recent NSW outbreak, she said it is absurd the community remains cut in half and is calling for some common sense and empathy.

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"It's just gotten way out of hand with these border closures, we need to get back to being Australians, and we need to have compassion for our people," she said.

"It's just wrong, it's heart-wrenching and it's unnecessary - we're not a COVID area."

It was devastating to see all the work the council and government had done over the past 18 months to set up a border bubble go to waste as soon as the latest outbreak occurred, she added.

She said they were shoved into a lockdown they didn't deserve to be in, and were not even consulted about what it would mean for the interconnectivity within the community.

Law and order, families and farmers were among the hardest hit, and Cr Humphries said the whole nation could suffer as a result.

"We are the people that put the grain and everything on the supermarket shelves, so if we can't function people are going to get very hungry - it's that simple," she said.

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