Helen Dalton calls for more Riverina LGAs to join border bubble

Mrs Dalton said she wants people living in Leeton, Carrathool, Narrandera and Griffith to be allowed to travel freely between the states and within the bubble itself.

The Victorian government has deemed most of regional NSW an "orange zone" after the recent coronavirus outbreak in Sydney.

Since 1am on Sunday, anybody from regional NSW requires a permit to cross the Murray River unless they live in one of 16 designated border zone local government areas, which include Wagga, Lockhart and Hay.

Leeton, Carrathool, Narrandera and Griffith are not in the bubble, as per the same rules that were in place at the start of the year.

Once again, NSW border zone residents can travel freely in Victoria as long as they haven't been north of the bubble in the past 14 days. This means Wagga residents can't travel to Narrandera, Leeton or Griffith, for example, if they intend to cross the Victorian border within the next fortnight.

This rule has prompted Mrs Dalton's call for more Riverina shires to be included.

"That would ease the burden on people and businesses that have to come into the border bubble from Griffith and Leeton," she said. "People generally want to do the right thing. Often people have properties on both sides [of the border], businesses on both sides.

"The people on the NSW side rely on Bendigo and elsewhere in Victoria for a lot of their health needs."

Leeton Shire Council mayor Paul Maytom said he wanted to know why his community had been left out of the bubble.

"If the other [LGAs] are included I just don't understand why we're excluded. It's a matter of, if people want to go there, they simply can't because of some stroke of a pen on a map," he said,

"I just don't understand the reasoning behind certainly Narrandera or Leeton being excluded. I think they would be OK.

"My position is: if we have to comply because it's in the best interests of our community, then we'll do that. "

There were no cases of COVID-19 detected yesterday in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District. The total number of positive cases since the pandemic began remains at 60.