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Blue... I’ve been there.<br />
“I’ve had to make those phone<br />
calls; I’ve had to make those<br />
phone calls to family and friends...<br />
I know they are out and having<br />
depression again.<br />
“When you walk past a yard full<br />
of buses and an empty shed and<br />
you go ‘there will be nobody here<br />
for the next two weeks, if I knock<br />
myself off who’s going to care?’ So<br />
it gets to that point, mate.<br />
“The mental strain and pressure...<br />
And, you know financially if the<br />
buses go, the house goes – they are<br />
only items. The mental pressure<br />
that you are dealing with that<br />
you’ve let your team down, your<br />
family down, your community<br />
down – that’s what the problem is.<br />
“It’s not so much the financial<br />
because all of a sudden you<br />
think you are a failure you’ve let<br />
so many people down because<br />
they have relied upon you to pay<br />
their mortgages and everything.<br />
And now they are struggling and<br />
they can’t make their mortgage<br />
repayments. And even though it<br />
[the pandemic] wasn’t our fault,<br />
you still take it to heart.”<br />
BORDER GUARANTEE<br />
Pincini says while they won’t<br />
reject any financial assistance, the<br />
point of the exercise is to draw<br />
attention to the need to re-open<br />
borders fully.<br />
“Until they can get borders<br />
open for the charter industry, the<br />
industry is screwed.<br />
“Every time Queensland decides<br />
that three people in NSW have<br />
got it and they are going to close<br />
the border on them, how can an<br />
operator book a tour – a five-day,<br />
10-day, 15-day tour, whatever – to<br />
not be able to go across the border?<br />
“It took us until September to<br />
get money back off Jetstar because<br />
of cancellations, so how do I go to<br />
book tours when there’s flights and<br />
things that cancel due to Covid<br />
and border closures and they only<br />
gave us back the money in the end<br />
because … they [the passenger/<br />
airline] cancelled their flight?<br />
“So how do we book tours and<br />
that knowing we’ve got no money<br />
coming back?<br />
“If we can’t go because the tour<br />
can’t happen because the border’s<br />
closed and we lose flights, lose<br />
hotels, lose everything, you are even<br />
in worse sh*t.<br />
“That’s why, as an industry, that’s<br />
what we need: we need guarantees<br />
the borders will stay open and they<br />
are not going to [close].<br />
“When did we go from ‘living<br />
with Covid’ to ‘eradication’?<br />
“It’s a stacked deck; none of<br />
us are going to be able to reach<br />
that.”<br />
Above:<br />
Pincini says that<br />
he was driven<br />
to protest by a<br />
lack of clarity on<br />
opening borders<br />
and keeping<br />
them open.<br />
Left:<br />
Pincini and his<br />
employees have<br />
been doing<br />
everything from<br />
driving silage<br />
trucks to hay<br />
contracting to<br />
try and keep<br />
themselves in<br />
business.<br />
Opposite:<br />
Since Covid hit,<br />
the most work<br />
that’s come<br />
through for<br />
Rockleigh Tours<br />
was running five<br />
buses for rail<br />
replacement<br />
in the early<br />
morning.<br />
busnews.com.au November 2020 <strong>ABC</strong><br />
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