Victoria asks to start second stream of hotel quarantine for business travellers

Victoria wants to take an extra 120 overseas students, actors and others travelling to the country for business into its hotel quarantine program each week on top of its quota of returning Australians.

The planned scheme will be funded by the firms seeking to bring foreigners into Australia, who will have to pay a higher than normal fee, and administered separately from regular hotel quarantine.

The Victorian government wants to add an economic stream of international arrivals to its quarantine program.Credit: Getty Images

In a letter to the federal government seen by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, the Victorian government proposes receiving the extra travellers from May 24, who will go through quarantine in a different hotel from those housing the 1000 returning citizens and residents it is already taking in each week.

Acting Premier James Merlino cites Victoria’s hosting of the Australian Open as part of its justification to take in the extra travellers in his letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and said it would ensure important economic activity could return.

“We’ve always said that we would work to welcome back international students when it is safe and reasonable to do so,” Mr Merlino said.

“On the advice of our public health experts and in working with the Commonwealth we’ve put forward a proposal for a dedicated quarantine program for economic cohorts, including international students,” Mr Merlino said.

“We believe we’ve acquitted all of the Commonwealth’s requirements to establish a dedicated economic stream so we look forward to their consideration and approval of this proposal.”

The Morrison government has previously knocked back a request from Victoria to include 120 economic arrivals in its then-planned cap of 1120 travellers a week. The state then reduced its planned cap to 1000.

Mr Merlino said staff at the extra hotel would have all the same protective gear as their colleagues at regular quarantine hotels while travellers would go through the same testing process.

There are about 36,200 Australians stranded abroad, according to federal government data from March.

NSW accepts the largest share of international travellers, with more than 3000 people a week going through its hotel quarantine scheme.

Universities have been desperate to get international students, who many higher education institutions rely on financially, into the country. Some have proposed to fly them in and pay for quarantine in a model similar to that proposed by Mr Merlino.

Some travellers, including celebrities coming to Australia to film movies, have been allowed to go through an alternative to hotel quarantine at their own expense.