Robert "Bear" Cameron, of Wolseley, applied for a cross-border permit three weeks ago in the hope of making repairs to his Aussie Ink Tattoo studio on Commercial Street.

He was rejected two weekends ago, and said he received an explanation from South Australian Police on Tuesday.

"They were quite honest and polite about it," he said. "They said the reason I had been rejected was because I hadn't put enough detail in - how far I was going to travel instead of just saying Kaniva - and that I should apply again. Now I have five days probably until I find out whether I can go back to Kaniva.

"If this one doesn't come through, I'll lose my house. I still owe money on the loan I took out to get it started and I put my house up as collateral. And now there's the situation where we can't work to pay the loan. I'm a sole trader, so I don't qualify for JobKeeper."

Mr Cameron said his business had been closed for all but a week and a half of the pandemic, between the two Melbourne lockdowns.

South Australia is only letting essential travellers living in cross-border communities enter the state.

All other Victorians must apply online letting that state's government know of their plans at least three days in advance.

The latest cross border travel direction says it is unknown how long the current restrictions will be in place for.

Mr Cameron said police let him through on Tuesday so he could give Kaniva police CCTV footage from outside his business, as part of an ongoing vandalism investigation.

Kaniva resident Debbie Kakoshke was surprised when her Bordertown dentist applied for a border traveller pass on her behalf at the start of July. She was even more surprised today, however.

"They sent me a text saying when I get to the border just to give photo ID or a receipt number," she said. "Today, the Central Assessment Unit at South Australian Police rang me to say they weren't going to pass my application because I didn't have enough evidence.

"So I told them the day I was going to travel (July 8) had actually been and gone and I just used my cross-border travel permit. So then they said I still would have needed to apply to travel even with the permit."

Ms Kakoshke said she was then told from the coming weekend, she would not be allowed to use her existing cross-border exemption form, which was paper-based. She was told all applications would have to be done online.

READ MORE:

"I got mine from police on the border in May and I've been able to use it to go to Keith and Bordertown until as recently as last weekend," she said.

"Everyone I know that needs to use it around Kaniva is using their paper-based ones. She said because there was no registration number on the permits they weren't current."

Ms Kakoshke said she hoped to get across the border in the next couple of weeks to support her father, who is based in Adelaide and recently had his leg amputated for medial reasons.

A South Australian Police media spokesman told the Mail-Times the paper approval system for cross-border traveller remained valid.

"There is no provision to stop people travelling into Victoria. However if a person is travelling as a Cross Border Community member, greater scrutiny is being applied to a traveller on arrival in SA (as in all cases of essential travellers) to ensure they meet the criteria, in this case the person has reasonable cause to travel across the border for the purposes of:

"An SA resident can travel across the border under this clause however if they travel further than 50 km into Victoria and return to SA, they are no longer able to travel under the provisions of a cross border community member, and as a returning SA resident will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days at a suitable place."

While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox twice weekly from the Wimmera Mail-Times. To make sure you're up-to-date with all the news from across the Wimmera, sign up below.