Corowa businessman Dean Druce has implored NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro to instruct his government to complete a re-write of border closure rules or risk economic carnage before the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
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The operator of one of the town's biggest tourist attractions, Corowa Whisky and Chocolate, said the present restrictions were designed to keep Sydneysiders safe, but had left his and other border businesses facing ruin.
Mr Barilaro, who is due in the region today, is the government's highest profile member to travel to Albury since the border closure began seven weeks ago.
"The NSW government is signing the death warrants of a lot of businesses on the border with the restrictions in place at the moment," Mr Druce said.
"We are just as much a part of NSW as the people living in Sydney.
"But the people of Sydney have got all the freedoms in the world and all the decisions are being made for the benefit of Sydney.
Mr Druce said the border bubble configuration needed a dramatic overhaul
"We all want it made easier to continue to operate as the local communities we are," he said.
We are sick of the talk. We want action.
- Dean Druce
Mr Druce said his business crashed by almost 50 per cent when Premier Gladys Berejiklian directed NSW residents to avoid border areas even though they were COVID-free.
Forty weddings were cancelled with no clear advice on when the border closure would end so they could be rescheduled.
Also, its decision to make hand sanitiser to assist in the pandemic fight had been thwarted by governments sourcing the product overseas.
Australian Industry Group regional manager Tim Farrah said border communities wanted some recognition from government that the present restrictions weren't working.
"Whilst the current system is absolutely flawed and doesn't achieve the aim of keeping COVID out of NSW we don't believe wholesale change will be made," he said.
"We will be seeking those key towns, Culcairn, Henty, Yackandandah and Beechworth, be included in the border region zone, but one change that has to be made is a system introduced where the impacts of the closure are reviewed and measured and where appropriate, change made."
Mr Druce said the decision to make hand sanitiser was designed to keep as many of employees in a job.
"We had to either shut the whole place down or re-tool and look at something completely different," he said.
"They are quick to tell the media 'support local, we're in this together', but turn around and buy it overseas."
He said he was seeing first-hand the impact the border closures were having on families.
His chef's wife can't live at their Rutherglen home and run her Corowa flower shop because their hometown remains outside the border bubble.
"It's not coronavirus doing the damage," Mr Druce said. "It's the mental health of everybody.
"The border and north-east region has had three cases in 150 days and the only people who have got the virus in that period are people who have been to Melbourne."
