LOCALS who are accustomed to migrating north for part of Dubbo's winter will be pleased to hear the drawbridge is soon to lower on the Queensland border.
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Weeks of withering criticism wasn't enough to hurry the Sunshine State's premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who finally relented this week and announced that everyone (except those who had travelled from Victoria) would be allowed in from July 10.
Our states and territories are firmly federated, but they still have their own health systems, police forces, laws, road rules and parliaments; their own customs, slang and political traditions.
The rail gauge disasters of the early years of Australia are well known, but even the relatively recent introduction of the Return and Earn container recycling scheme in NSW meant beer cartons and empty bottles suddenly had a different value depending on whether you were standing on the north or south bank of the Murray River.
Books will be written in coming years about the against-the-odds success of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's national cabinet, but it was unfortunately undermined by the patchwork of rules and restrictions that created confusion and muddied the message.
Some borders were open and some closed, some states were easing up as others were keeping things tight, some parts were crying out for a return of tourism while others were lecturing people to stay away.
It shouldn't be surprising that in a nation this large, different areas would want to do things differently. But some of the decisions have had an unmistakably parochial twang to them - a sense that you'd have to be a local to truly understand.
There has been some genuine shock that Ms Palaszczuk has stubbornly kept the Queensland border closed even as her counterpart in NSW and none other than the PM have told her to open it, but, in the end, it's her state and it's been her decision.
"They do things differently up there," has been said of our northern neighbours many a time over the years.
Ms Palaszczuk and her closed border have only confirmed the truth of that refrain.
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