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WELLINGTON: New Zealand expects to open a travel bubble with Australia by April next year and is working to finalize necessary border measures against the coronavirus, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday (December 14).
Ardern said New Zealand’s cabinet had agreed “in principle” to open a travel bubble through Tasmania in the first quarter of 2021 provided there are no major virus outbreaks in either country.
“It is our intention to name a date for the start of quarantine-free trans-Tasmanian travel in the new year, once the remaining details are closed,” he told reporters.
New Zealand closed its borders in March and since then all international arrivals, including Australians, have to spend two weeks in controlled isolation.
READ: COVID-19 – Six months after closing its borders, Australia allows entry of New Zealanders
The country has been widely praised for its strict handling of the coronavirus, which has caused just 25 deaths in a population of five million.
Ardern said he would not allow unnecessary risks to be taken to reopen travel with Australia, which prior to the pandemic was New Zealand’s largest source of foreign visitors.
He said a key consideration was how to prevent border facilities from flooding if there is a major virus outbreak in Australia prompting thousands of visiting New Zealanders to quickly return home.
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“It is not hypothetical, there have been several (outbreaks in Australia),” he said.
“We would need to arrange for potentially thousands of New Zealanders to return to New Zealand in numbers that we could not necessarily handle in isolation.”
Australia has allowed non-quarantine travel for New Zealand arrivals since October, but New Zealand has not reciprocated, maintaining its 14-day quarantine.
Over the weekend, New Zealand announced a similar plan for a travel bubble with the small Cook Islands in the Pacific in the first quarter of next year.
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