WE'RE regularly being told that information is vital in a pandemic and exhorted to keep up to date.
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At The Border Mail we pride ourselves on ensuring we are answering the queries and concerns of our readers, the citizenry of North East Victoria and southern NSW.
It is not always easy tracking down the detail that is relevant to our audience, given city-centric governments often fail to understand how their decisions play out in a border area.
The Victorian hard crossings closure, hastily implemented last week, illustrates our point.
On Friday, we contacted the Premier's office and Department of Health and Human Services in Victoria to clarify how the border bubble would operate and on Saturday, in response to growing public concern, asked the former what the status of NSW border zone residents was in terms of going into the Garden State.
We received an answer on Sunday evening that read: "Victorian residents are able to move freely within Victoria while NSW residents are only able to travel within the Victorian border bubble LGAs."
Early on Monday morning, Victorian border MPs were being briefed by the state's cross border commissioner Luke Wilson that those from the NSW bubble were free to go beyond the Victorian zone which stops at Benalla on the Hume Freeway.
The DHHS then sent another response to The Border Mail on Monday afternoon which gave the impression of free travel in Victoria for NSW bubble residents but did not specify the exact rules for those from places such as Albury, Corowa and Mulwala.
It was only after a call to a Victorian government media representative that we were alerted to crossing permit scheme directions, posted on the internet at midnight Sunday, outlining travel rules governing those in the NSW bubble.
This information should have been relayed earlier and more clearly.
NSW border residents, who travel to Melbourne for medical appointments and work or study, deserved to have their anxiety eased sooner.
