Well, no disrespect to my colleagues in New South Wales, I am not here to make announcements about the issuance of visas and passports. I don’t control international borders. I think the Federal Government have politely pointed that out to the New South Wales government as well. But in any event, we think we will have a National Cabinet meeting quite soon and have a chat about all of these issues. We want to get the place open as fast as we can.
Quarantine is absolutely changing. I think we’re going to see much more home-based quarantine, particularly for people who had the test, who have had two jabs, there are far less risk. And once we are open, we’re not trying to keep it at zero, we are in a fundamentally different phase. We will see international flights arrive in Melbourne and not go to hotel quarantine. They will instead go home for a period of time. It won’t be 14 days, it will be less than that. They might have to get some test done and the vaccinated of course, the rules will be different. Just like going to the pub. They will be different when it comes to what sort of quarantine you have to do. But I think we would all be well served by a National Cabinet discussion which I think would happen quite soon, where we can all talk about these issues and perhaps have some clarity.
The other issue, too, is I think Victoria will be very much aligned with New South Wales when it comes to flights coming in, people coming here for all sorts of different reasons. Of course in my discussions with Dominic, we want to have our borders open, and operate in some respects as one zone. Other states are not indicating they are going to have borders open. So I think you will and up with the East Coast to say,
New South Wales and Victoria, much more closely aligned when it comes to international borders.
New South Wales and Victoria, much more closely aligned when it comes to international borders.
