Government to announce commencement date of trans-Tasman bubble in two weeks

The Government will announce the commencement date of the trans-Tasman bubble after Easter, on April 6, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just revealed during her weekly post-Cabinet press conference. 

"We intend to announce the commencement date... on the 6th of April," Ardern said today. 

Airports are already set up for the bubble, as are airlines and crew. 

Ardern called quarantine-free travel with Australia a "key opportunity" for New Zealand.

"We know people want certainty... about what the future looks like."

However, Ardern gave a warning to potential travellers, saying on both sides of the ditch there would be an "element of flyer-beware", should the borders shut while visiting Australia, or if Australians are in New Zealand. 

She also added that New Zealand is looking at creating bubbles with particular Australian states, rather than a whole of Australia approach. 

"Our view is, rather than trying to work through a solution that sees all of Australia with New Zealand, that we can work through an arrangement that sees us operate in some states and not others."

Ardern said New Zealand needs to have finalised its framework for how to respond if there are any Covid-19 community cases in Australia, including contract tracing measures for people travelling from Australia. 

She said additional work is needed on contact tracing, the use of QR codes, arrangements around testing and the creation of a final framework on an alert level system taking into account the way to deal with multiple Australian states.

Work is also needed on what basis New Zealand would shut down. 

Ardern said she wants to make sure "we have that final readiness in place", but said she is confident the Government could announce a date on April 6.

"There are layers to this... but it does have a significant layer of complexity."

Opposition politicians, meanwhile, were quick to lampoon the Prime Minister for her "announcement to have an announcement". 

"For Goodness sake!" National leader Judith Collins wrote on social media. "Have they no ability to make a decision that doesn’t include NO?"

ACT leader David Seymour also released a statement on the issue.

“It’s simply not good enough for the Prime Minister to treat the media like five-year-olds and tell them there are ‘layers of complexity...which I won’t bore you with now’ behind why she can’t say more about a trans-Tasman bubble before April 6,” Seymour said.

“How condescending.

“We’ve been waiting months for some detail on why we don’t have quarantine-free travel with Australia, so please Prime Minister, bore away – I think you’ll find we’re all ears.

“New Zealanders want to know what the process will be and what the details are that are holding it up."

This morning, Ardern told Breakfast a bubble was "close" , but cautioned travellers of getting stranded across the ditch if there is another outbreak. 

Sources told 1 NEWS last week the creation of a bubble in April was a "reasonable timeframe" to expect. 

States in Australia began opening up to quarantine-free travel from New Zealand from October last year. However, New Zealand held back reciprocating, with the Prime Minister at the time citing issues such as wanting to have a whole-of-Australia approach, rather than state-by-state. 

In December, Cabinet agreed in principle to open a travel bubble in the first quarter of 2021. 

Ardern then said "things have changed" over the timing of the bubble due to the Sydney outbreak and the way Australia temporarily closed its borders during New Zealand's community outbreak. 

National had been pushing for the creation of a two-way bubble, launching a petition last week, while leader Judith Collins said "we're going to end up with the death of Queenstown" if one was not opened soon.