Australia's changing Covid-19 response at the border stalling travel bubble, says Hipkins

Almost 2000 contacts of Auckland's latest outbreak have tested negative.

Late last year the Government said a travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand would begin by the end of March this year.

Now March has arrived it’s unclear when travel without quarantine restrictions will take place between the two countries.

Last night it was announced that Kiwis could once again travel across the Tasman without needing to quarantine. Australia had shut its borders during Auckland's Level 3 lockdown last week. 

However, New Zealand has yet to offer quarantine-free travel from Australia to New Zealand.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says whether a two-way travel bubble happens or not depends on the New Zealand Government.

“If the New Zealand Government doesn’t wish Australians to visit New Zealand and visit Queenstown or Wellington or other parts of the country then that's a matter for them - it’s always a matter for them.

“I’m happy for them to open it up as soon as the Prime Minister and her Government would like to do that -and we've very had amicable conversations about this.

“Australia is open to New Zealand and has been for some time, with the exception of a couple of brief pauses in that arrangement, and that's benefiting our economy, it’s benefiting particularly our travel and tourism industry and aviation sector which has been hard hit by the pandemic, but if Australians can't go to Queenstown I'm hoping they're going to Cairns.”

When asked what was stalling New Zealand from reciprocating the Australian one-way travel bubble, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said it was still pinned on the certainty around controlling potential outbreaks.

He said how the Australian Government had recently changed its response to outbreaks has contributed to New Zealand's decision to not open its borders to Australia.

“It’s clear that their response framework we were originally discussing with them is something that they will no longer use,” Hipkins says.

“We have to recalibrate at our end to consider how that affects our response.”

Hipkins says the changes to the Australian response to outbreaks include new testing requirements for Kiwi travellers arriving in Australia which wasn’t discussed in earlier negotiations for opening the border.

“I still don’t think these are insurmountable issues, so we continue to talk with them.”

The issue of inter-border restrictions on quarantine-free travel also adds to the list of complications, Hipkins says.

“Bear in mind the willingness to do that [quarantine-free travel] is based on New Zealand being completely Covid free and even the smallest incursion of Covid into our community prompts quite a significant response from Australia.”

Hipkins says he’s optimistic about the bubble happening but admits the discussions have been difficult.

“There have been outbreaks on both sides that we’ve had to tend to and deal with, there is faith in these discussions and I’m confident and I’m optimistic about the way they’re proceeding and as soon as we have more details to share on that we will.”

In December last year, Hipkins said to open a bubble a variety of things had to be worked through.

“So we’ve got to work through what would happen in the event of a resurgence, that’s one of the things we have to work through - we’ve got to work through a lot of logistical issues, which includes working with the airports and the airlines.

“One of the issues that we are working through with the airlines now is making sure that any air crews who are working in safe travel zones are segregated from air crews who are working in the hot zones, if you like.

“That’s a logistical challenge for an airline like Air New Zealand who are the main airline flying in and out of New Zealand,” Hipkins said.
“So, there are two things really to finally resolve: logistics and scenario-planning in the event of an outbreak.”

He said if New Zealand were to open up to the Gold Coast, for example and there were “thousands of New Zealanders on the Gold Coast enjoying the summer sun and there was to be an outbreak and we had to bring them all home and isolate them at home, we’d need to figure out exactly how that would happen".

“Because we wouldn’t have thousands of managed isolation rooms reserved just in case that were to happen.

“So we’ve just got to work through all those final scenarios,” Hipkins said.

The Opposition have put pressure on the Government to establish a travel bubble with Australia.

The National Party leader says New Zealanders were promised smart border control of Covid-19, but got the "most closed border".

National Party leader Judith Collins says New Zealand should be able to make non-quarantine travel function between the two countries.

"I think we can all look at this and say, 'Australia is able to open their borders to New Zealanders and they have been able to close them when there's any Covid cases over here, we could do the same,'" Collins told Breakfast this morning.

"If the Aussies can do it, surely we can do it better. They've had one with us since October and they seem to be able to manage. You know we can do it better than them — I'm sure we can.

"We were promised the smartest border in the world from [Deputy Prime Minister] Grant Robertson. At the moment we've got the most closed border. It feels like, in many ways, not smart."

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