ANYONE entering South Australia will need to apply for pre-approval online from the State Government regardless of their personal or work status, including current essential travellers.
In a major shake-up to the state’s border control measures, people travelling into South Australia must present a unique code at police checkpoints with the new process aimed at improving consistency for travellers.
Launching tomorrow, the online application process will use information provided to determine whether a person is an essential traveller or is required to go into a 14-day quarantine period.
Applicants will receive a response within 72 hours.
The pre-approval initiative aims to streamline the process for anybody wishing to enter the state and provide greater consistency for essential travellers.
South Australia yesterday recorded three new COVID19 cases – its first in over a month – all linked to overseas arrivals.
The new cases were announced as the state welcomed stage three of eased restrictions, which included significant increases to allowable patron capacity and returned some sectors to a more viable position.
However, with Victoria recording 75 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said the main risk to the state was linked to people entering South Australia.
“For all intents and purposes I think we have eliminated the virus, but that does not mean it cannot find its way in,” he said.
“People who do come into South Australia potentially carry the virus with them, so we still have the mechanisms in place to handle an event should it occur.
“Elimination is probably an unlikely outcome long term.”
He revealed discussions continue to take place regarding a travel bubble between South Australia and certain jurisdictions of Victoria.
“There is some conversations about having restrictions just for people who travel from hot spots, but there are some logistical issues that make that very challenging, so we are just working through that at the moment,” Comm Stevens said.
Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell has been among the strong advocates for a regional travel bubble between the Limestone Coast and western Victoria, which could be based around postcodes, local government areas or by identifying a 100km travel zone across the border.
While no official move has been made on a travel bubble by Premier Steven Marshall, he has reaffirmed his commitment to easing border restrictions with Australia’s eastern states from July 20.
Joining the growing list of voices pushing for interstate connectivity, Tourism Industry Council of South Australia (TiCSA) chief executive officer, Shaun de Bruyn said reopening South Australia’s borders to unrestricted travel was critical to the survival of many local tourism businesses.
“Many tourism businesses across the state have high levels of interstate customers and they rely on diversified markets to achieve financial sustainability,” he said.
“The sooner we can lift all interstate border restrictions, the sooner our tourism businesses can resume operations, bring more jobs back online and rebound from the catastrophic conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
With businesses now subject to a one person per two square metre rule, Blue Lake Golf Links Bar and Bistro owner Bill Burley expressed relief after months of difficult working conditions for the hospitality industry.
“Even though they say it was social-distancing, it was anti-social and that’s not what hospitality is about, so it was not fun to work in and was not fun for the customers,” Mr Burley said.
“We still are not at full noise, but it’s great people can be at the bar and stand around and have a beer once again.”
On the flip side, Mr Burley said one positive from the COVID-19 pandemic was how it had rejuvenated the sport of golf.
He revealed the club was experiencing record numbers on the course as one of the only sports that was not put on hold when restrictions were put in place.
“We stayed open all through this and did everything by the rules and the sport has reaped the rewards from it,” he said.
“We cannot have a false sense of these numbers being the same all the time because they will go back to those winter sports.
“But it is a great opportunity to golf and if we give them a taste of it now, they might come back to it.”
