Secretary of the Ministry of Health Brendan Murphy has warned that Australia’s borders are unlikely to open to widespread foreign travel This year as NSW is counting the cost of closing state lines and travel restrictions on local tourism.

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Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet have urged other states to lift travel restrictions on domestic coronaviruses. Numbers from Destination NSW show interstate visitors spent $ 9.5 billion in NSW in 2019 – nearly $ 180 million a week.

Mr Nicholls, president of the Dive Industry Association of Australia, said the closure of state lines had been “catastrophic” for dive companies across Australia, particularly Queensland.

“We tried planning trips to Queensland to do business for them and we’ve had to postpone it three times,” he said.

“The problem for a lot of people booking outside of Queensland or WA is that the slightest cough can close the borders. So there is no trust in the booking.”

Mr Nicholls said a number of dive shops had gone into hibernation and he knew of some in Queensland and Sydney that were forced to close permanently.

He said the assistance to local divers in Manly was “fantastic” but that did not make up for his own loss of the international tourism business.

“Not only are tourists coming in, but we also have an international travel section in our business that has completely evaporated,” he said.

“In the darkest of times, JobKeeper was a help. It helped us keep our heads above water.”

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Craig Shephard and his wife Justine, who run Obsession Dive in Taren Point and specialize in snorkeling, diving and spearfishing gear, said the loss of international travel and the cruise market combined with border restrictions in Queensland resulted in a huge loss of business.

“I think we’ve seen a 90 percent decline in this market because no one goes to these destinations, no one goes overseas and our snorkeling department stopped,” Shephard said.

“The whole time we had things on the shelf that didn’t sell until Christmas.

“The other really big problem that is affecting business in general is the tripling of freight costs.”

Mr Shephard said a shipment of diving equipment from Europe that would normally have cost him $ 470 would have cost him nearly $ 1,412 this month.

“It just chews your profit,” he said. “It took almost three months to get here by plane, which is crazy.”

A trained biologist, Mr. Shephard also sells sea urchins to restaurants in Sydney, but that business had also suffered from the loss of tourists from China.

“A 90 percent reduction was achieved with COVID,” he said. “I usually harvest about 12 tons of brats a year, I have harvested two [tonne] last year.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Shephard said he saw an increase in people buying spearfishing gear in order to catch their own fish to eat.

“I have a few people who came in every day and said they wanted to fish for food, and that’s why they went for it,” he said.

“There were people in dire straits with millions in mortgages. In the middle of that lockdown, people went for food fishing.”

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Anna Patty is a senior writer for The Sydney Morning Herald with an emphasis on higher education. She is a former workplace editor, education editor, state political reporter, and health reporter.

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