SA to reopen borders to ACT residents at midnight, NSW stays shut for now

The state’s borders will reopen to ACT residents from midnight tonight but remain closed to NSW for likely the next week and a half.

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Visitors will be able to freely travel between South Australia and the ACT from midnight but New South Wales travellers face restrictions until at least the end of next week.

Authorities relaxed travel with the nation’s capital airport from midnight Wednesday to allow visitors only travelling by air from Canberra.

Anyone driving from the ACT, through NSW, will still be legally required to quarantine for 14 days until at least the end of next week.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens revealed the overhaul following a meeting of the state’s transition committee and after receiving urgent Crown legal and health advice.

“We’re hopeful the situation with NSW will continue to improve,” he said.

“It is an open ended time frame because NSW is continuing to identify isolated cases of community transmission.

“So it is not possible to put a time frame on it but the indicators are that NSW is heading in the right direction. I am optimistic.”

Mr Stevens said there was considerable economic benefit with jobs in the hospitality and accommodation sectors and allowing family reunions.

“I think this is a well-balanced risk based decision,” he said.

The committee, comprising Mr Stevens, SA Health boss Dr Chris McGowan, chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier and other senior public servants, spent a majority of their time debating the border issue.

Their meeting came as SA recorded its third day of zero daily cases, and a ninth consecutive day of no active, or infectious patients,

Mr Stevens, who is also the state’s COVID co-ordinator, said NSW borders will stay closed for at least the next 10 days amid concerns over community transmission, in which no outbreak source can be identified.

He said the ban, which involves any NSW travellers being forced to enter a fortnight of quarantine, will remain in force until health experts are satisfied travel can occur without risking public safety.

He said Prof Spurrier’s advice was NSW Health was doing an “exceptional job with contact tracing and they’re confident that the situation will improve” to allow restrictions to ease.

Police figures to be published tomorrow show that over the past week 137 people have travelled from the ACT, compared to 125 the week before.

Last week there were 1750 people crossing between NSW, compared to 1623 over the previous seven days.

Victorian travellers were the highest volume between September 4 and last Thursday – 7639 last week compared to 6877 over the previous seven days.

The figures show there were 17171 SA border crossings last week compared to 15718 between August 28 and September 3.

Mr Stevens warned travellers to honestly declare their movements.

“People will be required to declare that they have not been outside of a safe community transmission zone for the 14 period prior to travelling,” he said.

“This is our way of assuring as best as possible that those people … have not exposed themselves unnecessarily to COVID-19 and therefore bringing it (here).

“It is simply not possible for us to be confident that a person who has been driving … has not had contact with the NSW community.

“If we have information or evidence that suggests people have not been truthful then we will deal with that.”

SA Police will randomly check travellers.

The ACT has not had a virus case for more than two months, even though its borders to NSW have been open and like SA has no active patients.

NSW yesterday recorded seven new COVID cases including one mystery patient with an unknown source.

Mr Stevens said his advice was the last worrying case that occurred three days ago.

He said the Crown law advice he sought was to ensure changes were not unconstitutional and legally allowed people to move while Dr McGowan provided written support for the ACT changes.

Mr Stevens refused to discuss Dr McGowan’s advice while SA Health also would not release it last night.

But in a statement, an SA Health spokeswoman said: “As part of the pandemic response, Dr McGowan regularly provides the Police Commissioner information to assist with decision making.

“(The) correspondence provided SA Health’s official support for the change to the borders between SA and the ACT.”