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Queensland will open its border to New Zealand visitors starting Saturday after the country went 28 days without a case of community transmission of Covid-19, the state’s prime minister said.
“In fact, we will open New Zealand starting at 1am (AEST) tomorrow morning,” Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Friday.
Palaszczuk, who is in Canberra for the national cabinet meeting on Friday morning, said the decision was made on the advice of the state’s health director, Jeannette Young, who agreed that New Zealanders could freely enter Queensland without having to to be quarantined.
“Jeannette Young warned me last night that New Zealand is ready to go,” he told Nine’s Today.
New Zealanders can already travel to New South Wales and the Northern Territory without isolation, although they must be quarantined for two weeks upon arrival home. Australians cannot yet enter New Zealand.
Palaszczuk was optimistic that New Zealand would soon consider it safe enough to remove quarantine requirements on arrivals from Australia.
“We hope that eventually New Zealanders don’t have to do that quarantine at the hotel when they return, and then there will be a smooth movement between the two,” he said.
The prime minister denied that the decision to open up to New Zealand was made at the behest of industry groups, saying it was based only on health advice.
When asked about the labor shortage on the state’s fruit and vegetable farms, he confirmed that New Zealand residents will be able to enter to work.
“Anyone from New Zealand will be welcome to Queensland,” added Palaszczuk.
Queensland will also allow people from Adelaide to enter the state without undergoing a mandatory quarantine at 1am on Saturday.
Young and the state’s health minister, Yvette D’Ath, signaled the reopening Monday after deciding that the South Australian government had contained a virus outbreak in the city.
Queensland will also allow socially distanced dancing indoors starting at 1 a.m. Monday.
