Two-way Tasman bubble could go ahead despite Covid travel setback

Promises of an Australia-New Zealand safe travel corridor are still up in the air. Photo / File, Grant Bradley

There's one exception that may be made to the long-term travel ban that has Aussies looking east.

Pent-up Australian travellers were dealt a blow yesterday when Health Department chief Brendan Murphy said international borders would likely remain closed until 2022, even with a vaccine.

Despite the grim update, COVID-19 response minister Chris Hipkins recently reaffirmed the country's plans to establish a two-way travel bubble with Australia by April.

Hipkins told The Guardian last week New Zealand would make a decision on a commencement date "early this year, as conditions allow".

The minister said Australia and New Zealand would need to meet "a range of health and border requirements" in order for quarantine-free trans-Tasman travel to go ahead, and decisions about which Australian states and territories would be part of the bubble were "matters for Australia".

Both countries would be in contact with each other as they pursued their vaccine rollout strategies, although it was not yet known what implication the vaccine would have on border measures, he added.

"The health and border requirements for a trans-Tasman Safe Travel Zone will be strict," Hipkins said.

"As well, officials are completing further readiness work, including contingency planning for an outbreak in either country after a Safe Travel Zone commences."

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern gave the green light to the two-way trans-Tasman travel bubble in December, with plans for it to launch in the first quarter of 2021.

The deal would see Australians exempted from 14 days of quarantine on arrival in New Zealand.

PM Ardern said one of the biggest hurdles in establishing the bubble is the segregation of passengers from "safe zone" countries deemed low risk, and those travelling in from COVID-19 affected countries. Another issue to be resolved was a contingency plan in case there was a resurgence of cases in Australia.

Australians have been waiting for the second half to the Tasman travel corridor since October. Photo / Getty Images

The good news comes among further uncertainty about when Australia's international borders will reopen, 10 months after they were clamped shut due to the global spread of the coronavirus.

Scientists told Nine Newspapers on Tuesday theAustralian border would have to remain shut because of the risk of travellers spreading COVID-19 even after taking the vaccine.

It comes after Prof Brendan Murphy, who advised Australian PM Scott Morrison to close the border in March, said they were unlikely to re-open this year.

"I think that we'll go most of this year with still substantial border restrictions. Even if we have a lot of the population vaccinated, we don't know whether that will prevent transmission of the virus," he said.

"And it's likely that quarantine will continue for some time. One of the things about this virus is that the rule book has been made up as we go."

Australian Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive Margy Osmond said the message was a blow to the industry, which would need a "pay-packet support exercise" similar to JobKeeper to survive extended international border closures and uncertainty around domestic borders.

"At the very least, we are going to need an extension of JobKeeper or a version of it. We're keen to talk to government about that," Ms Osmond told ABC News Breakfast.

"I do think there is a larger issue to do with the strategic survival of the industry. You step outside the ring around most capital cities, the sort of two- to four-hour drive ring, and you will see real pain in the industry and in the centre of CBDs, which have largely died.

"So we are going to need a much more strategic approach. We have started that conversation with [the] Government. I must say the new Minister for Tourism, Dan Tehan, has followed on from his predecessor, (Simon) Birmingham, with a serious commitment to the industry. But if we don't do these things, we will be lucky go have a tourism industry in 12, 18 months' time. We can't recover without international borders opening and we can't survive without certainty to do with domestic borders."