Ms Anne moved 800 kilometres to Tweed Heads from Sydney months ago to care for her ailing,93-year-old grandfather.
Even though there are family members in south-east Queensland only minutes away,they have not been able to cross the border without getting stuck themselves.
“The stress has been phenomenal,” she says.
Ms Anne,standing in a Tweed Heads carpark at midnight on a Sunday,is in the kind of tearful panic that can only make sense in the context of these absurd times.
After all these months,all this hardship,with the border literally around the Wharf Street corner,was it all going to fall apart because of a form?
This masthead watches her move through the steps of the border application only for the words “you cannot enter Queensland” to appear on her phone’s screen.
At the checkpoint,where traffic is moving at the pace of a slow walk,dozens of people gather around Eliza Williams,the angel of the border.
The 30-year-old project manager,who is trying to get to the Gold Coast,is here to ask police if it is indeed a pre-1am go time,but is instead tending to her fellow travellers.
“Oh,you should be a celebrity,” one elderly woman says when Ms Williams helps her submit the troublesome form.
Later,the woman and her partner try to offer a thank-you gift of money. It is politely declined.
“Hello? Can you find it?” the next person asks.
They are having trouble working if they are an X,a G,or a GV or some other jumble of letters. Ms Williams patiently helps them screenshot their proof of vaccination and residence,then helps them upload it to the forms.
When she is busy assisting someone,others try asking the police.
“Can you help me out? Come on,it’s your job,man,” says one man,turned back for having the wrong pass,to the officers. Another man becomes aggressive.
The police,straining to keep the line moving,say they cannot.
People are convinced the online system is not working. Ms Williams believes it’s a case of stressed and hurried travellers entering the wrong inputs.
Whatever the truth,there is no one from the Queensland Government here to help.
“They were all in a bit of a panic,weren’t they?” Ms Williams says,clear of the backlog after about 45 minutes.
“I hope I wasn’t being rude by the end of it,” she says. “I think there really needed to be someone put here to help them.”
Between 20,000 and 50,000 additional people are expected to cross the Queensland border in the coming days.
Many have been surviving these weeks and months on the charity of loved ones,or burning savings to get by south of the border while meeting mortgages and rent at home.
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Many are returning jobless and broke.
“You literally don’t know what people are going through,” Ms Anne tells dismissive Queensland friends.
“I mean,look around. Look at all these people.”
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