Calls quickly came into the office of the Wodonga-based member after Monday morning's announcement.

"This is a knee-jerk reaction of the very worst kind, made with absolutely no consideration of regional Victoria," he said.

"The border closure is going to rip communities like Wodonga-Albury apart and create havoc for families who live on one side of the border but work or need health treatment or study on the other side."

Mr Quilty was unhappy that regional Victoria was being made to suffer the consequences of what he said were decisions made for Melbourne.

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"We haven't had a case in the regions for three months and all the cases we had before then came out of Melbourne," he said.

"We are being governed by muppets from Melbourne who are not standing up for Victoria and fighting to keep the border open. Something has to break.

"Yet again, the idea of Rexit - a separation of regional Victoria from Melbourne - makes absolute sense.

"Metropolitan decision-makers are proving yet again their complete ignorance of regional Victoria."

But the region's Liberal MPs, Albury's Justin Clancy and Benambra's Bill Tilley, have defended the border closure as a move done to protect Border communities.

In a joint statement, they said the permits to be issued by Service NSW must recognise the wide range of workers and students who need to move across state lines every day.

"Our communities have been through so much already and I am under no illusion as to the impact of this development - it will be challenging," Mr Clancy said.

"We understand that regional Victoria is so far relatively free of the virus, however without measures around Melbourne we wear the impact for the sake of containing the virus.

"We recognise this is going to create hardship and frustration for our communities, but we have to place our faith in the frontline medical teams and contact tracers to drive this down."

Mr Tilley said the border closure was a result of coronavirus spreading in hotel quarantine in Melbourne and despite being incredibly disciplined to keep the region free of the virus for three months, Border communities were paying the penalty.

"What we continue to advocate is that permits allowing people to cross the border recognise the unique and co-dependent relationship between Albury and Wodonga," he said.

"NSW is doing this in good faith, but make no mistakes, this does not give people a leave pass to travel to Melbourne and then think this permit will let them enter NSW."

He said the anger and frustration that will be felt was the fault of the Victorian government.

"This is going to turn to (Lincoln) Causeway, Hume Freeway or any of the other 13 border crossings in the electorate into a car park," Mr Tilley said.