Push for Adelaide-Canberra travel bubble as SA lifts covid restrictions
Another interstate destination could open up for SA travellers with a new Australian capital city reaching out to renew links with Adelaide.
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Canberra is lobbying South Australia to open a mini travel bubble between Adelaide and the ACT before the state fully reopens its borders.
However, the move is falling on deaf ears as Premier Steven Marshall insists that opening borders will do more harm than good.
SA again recorded no new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.
The local tourism industry also is calling for a phased out approach to border restrictions. It comes as one of Australia’s top doctors, who has been instrumental in the fight against COVID-19, said there was no medical reason for some states to still have their borders shut.
“From a medical point of view, I can’t see why the borders are still closed,” deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly said.
Dr Kelly said the decision to reopen was up to each state and territory but many regions had not had any cases for days, while the Northern Territory hadn’t seen a case for “many weeks”
A plan for a mini-travel bubble between Adelaide and Canberra is being pushed by the ACT to revive tourism in both regions, and to allow defence industry workers to travel between the two hubs.
Canberra Airport managing director Stephen Byron has written to Mr Marshall urging him to permit flights between the cities from June 5 as a test case, as they both crush the coronavirus curve. “It’s baby steps that give the health experts the confidence before you open the floodgates,” Mr Byron told The Advertiser. He proposed flights between the two “COVID safe communities” for two weeks before SA lifted its borders further.
Before the shutdown, trips between the two cities had grown by almost 10 per cent from 2017 to 2019 off the back of major defence contracts being awarded to SA.
In a letter to Mr Marshall, Mr Byron wrote: “There is much demand from business between our two cities and states and there is also significant demand from the desire to visit friends and relatives between our two regions.”
But Mr Marshall is standing firm. “There will be come a time when we want to relax our borders but we can go a lot further, faster by keeping our state borders in place at the moment,” he said.
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So what’s opening back up in SA next?
“Once you remove the state borders you really need to be moving as a country with restrictions. There will be benefits but also costs associated with with lifting the border and we need to look at it from a balance position and I have formed the opinion that South Australia is much better off to keep a strong borders in place at the moment.”
Tourism Industry Council of SA chief Shaun deBruyn, pictured, said the tourism industry wanted phased in border openings with states and territories that had the coronavirus under control.
He said the ACT, West Australia and the Northern Territory would be logical first choices. “Opening borders to interstate travellers is critical to our recovery, once it is safe to do so,” he said.
“This will help the many businesses who rely on interstate customers including CBD Adelaide accommodation providers.”
Under the ACT plan, Canberrans would have to apply for an exception to SA’s border restrictions based on their residency so they could visit without having to quarantine on arrival.
Mr Byron called on Mr Marshall to discuss the matter with ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr “to develop and implement an immediately workable solution”.
Under the ACT plan, Canberrans would have to apply for an exception to SA’s border restrictions based on their residency so they could visit without having to quarantine on arrival.
