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A border town mayor is calling on the Queensland and NSW governments to shift border checkpoints south and to lift the latter state's regional lockdown to reunite his community after families were forced to celebrate Father's Day over barricades.
Tweed Shire Mayor Chris Cherry said she was left heartbroken after seeing images of residents celebrating the special occasion at the closed border on Sunday.
Footage showed teary-eyed children hugging their parents while families improvised and used the plastic barricade as a table to share a meal with their loved ones.
'It was heartbreaking. What we saw was the tip of the iceberg of the thousands of people and families that this is affecting,' she told Nine's Today Show on Monday.
A mayor has joined calls to move the Queensland and NSW border south after families were separated and forced to celebrate Father's Day over plastic barricades
Footage showed teary-eyed children hugging their parents while families improvised and used the plastic barricade as a table to share a meal with their loved ones
The mayor is calling for NSW to lift regional lockdown in the area and for border checkpoints to be moved south to include Tweed Heads in a border bubble zone administered by Queensland police.
Cr Cherry says the ongoing toll on local people's mental health and the economy from the border closure, which Queensland implemented in late July, has been devastating.
'Nobody with a heart could look at what happened yesterday and not think that something has to be done and urgently,' she said.
'These are our families' lives that are being affected like this. I know people are suffering all over the state and I don't want to take anything away from that, people are hurting everywhere, but this is
