PM gives big hint hotel quarantine could be drawing to close

The PM has revealed the group of people who may be freely allowed to travel outside of Australia and return without facing hotel quarantine.

Vaccinated Australians could soon be allowed in and out of the country without undergoing hotel quarantine.

Scott Morrison on Thursday explained he was working on a scheme that would “safely increase our connection with the rest of the world” while maintaining Australia’s largely COVID-free status.

The Prime Minister said family crises including deaths, as well as essential business, would be among the first reasons people could be allowed to travel internationally once vaccinated. 

“[Vaccinated Australians would] return to Australia without the need for a hotel quarantine of 14 days and to be able to do that either at home or under some other less stringent environment,” he said. 

“That is something we’re working on right now to try safely increase our connection with the rest of the world.”

Mr Morrison flagged he’d like to see international students return “but it’s not safe to do that yet”, insisting the focus was on Australian residents and citizens.

A woman waves from her window at a quarantine hotel. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

The Andrews Government says it is still awaiting a response from the federal government about redirecting its vaccine supply to GPs two days after the proposal was floated.

Acting Premier James Merlino wrote to Mr Morrison earlier this week requesting the state’s AstraZeneca shipments for vaccination hubs planned for the next two weeks go to clinics to assist the rollout.

This would be equal to about 80,000 doses.

The state has paused administering the vaccine to under 50s while it awaits more detail on indemnity for healthcare professionals and multilingual information about the AstraZeneca doses.

Speaking on Thursday, Mr Merlino said he was still waiting for a response to the vaccine proposal but welcomed twice-weekly national cabinet meetings to help fix the rollout.

“Those are the things we’ll be urgently raising with the federal government,” he said.

Mr Merlino said the government was open to taking on responsibility for more vaccines and for mass vaccination clinics but this would depend on supply from the Commonwealth.

“We need an urgent recalibration of our vaccine program,” he said.

“Public confidence has taken a hit. The numbers have taken a hit and that’s why we need to recalibrate and get on with vaccinating our population.”