Residents of Echuca-Moama are holding their breath as Premier Daniel Andrews hints at further border announcements in the coming days.
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The border bubble bridging Victoria to NSW will shrink from Wednesday as Mr Andrews vows to keep Victorians safe from Sydney's growing coronavirus outbreak.
When announcing the changed restrictions, Mr Andrews said he had not had time to inform NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian about locking The City of Wagga Wagga, Hay Shire Council, Lockhart Shire Council and Murrumbidgee Council out of the border bubble.
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"While case numbers in Sydney remain so high, we are still at risk of another significant incursion from NSW so on the advice of the Chief Health Officer, changes will also be made to tighten our cross-border bubble with NSW," the Premier's statement read.
"The City of Wagga Wagga, Hay Shire Council, Lockhart Shire Council and Murrumbidgee Council will no longer be included in the cross border bubble.
"These local government areas will be included under the Extreme Risk Zone from 11:59pm tonight, in line with the rest of NSW and residents will need a Specified Worker Permit, transit permit, or an exemption to enter Victoria."
Mr Andrews said he had further announcements to make about the Victorian and NSW border.
"The four local government areas now not apart of the border bubble are not massive tourism markets for us, it just means we have less people potentially visiting our region," she said.
"Our main market is Victoria and while people can travel, they can't stay or visit their family and friends which is a blow to that market. People can only book accommodation with their households, intimate partners and single bubbles so we'll wait and see if that will have an effect.
"The issue we have now is last year we had JobKeeper to help businesses open and accommodate with less people coming in due to density limits and now that's not the case.
"Businesses will need to work out their cashflow to support staff and that's a huge challenge and most of those businesses have to have a COVID Marshall and that's an extra challenge."
At this stage, Ms Mackenzie said Bendigo residents can travel to Echuca, but are under NSW stay-at-home orders when they cross the river to Moama.
Bendigo is not included in NSW's border bubble region; but communities in the NSW border bubble can cross the border.
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"While the Premier said "we're open", it still feels like lockdown for border communities as we're still getting pulled over by police whenever we go to work across the bridge," she said.
"It's just hard when we're all used to travel through our communities for things like work, university and for essential services.
"We would like one border, not the Victorian border bubble and the NSW border bubble regions which encompass different communities. We're just hoping people will be able to cross that border soon."
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