Covid-19: Interstate travel rule confusion

Martin Foley says the incentive for Victorians to return from overseas via quarantine-free NSW is ‘a matter for NSW’.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Sydneysiders will be able to travel to any location in Victoria next week under new interstate border rules, but Melburnians will still be restricted from visiting regional areas until Victoria hits 80 per cent double-dosed.

And confusion remains over whether Victoria will impose extra quarantine requirements on people travelling to the state from overseas via NSW after November 1, the date NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet declared his state would reopen to the world.

Announcing the changes to border rules on Friday, Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said once people from NSW arrived in Victoria, they would be subject to travel rules for that jurisdiction.

For those in Melbourne, this is a 15km travel limit from home, increasing to 25km when the state reaches its 70 per cent double-dose target, likely late next week.

Speaking just over an hour after the NSW press conference, Mr Foley on Friday declared “everyone needs to take a chill pill” when quizzed over the implications of Mr Perrottet’s announcement.

“We will go through that. We wish NSW, as we always do, every success, and Victoria will go about its business in the national context, understanding it’s the commonwealth who control international borders, not the states.”

Asked why anyone would fly into Melbourne from overseas, given they will be able to fly into Sydney without having to quarantine, Mr Foley claimed it was “a matter for the NSW government”.

Mr Foley claimed the NSW decision would not have any impact on the utility of the $200m quarantine facility being built at Mickleham near Melbourne Airport.

“That facility being delivered in partnership with the commonwealth will be needed for quite some time,” he said.

“As we get into 2022, we will see people from around the globe wanting to return to Australia, some from very high-risk countries and we would imagine when we see things like the agricultural workforce arrangements and others, some pretty risky situations with the status of vaccines being uncertain. In that regard, the Mickleham facility will have an ongoing role for some time.”

Asked if the new rules meant a Melburnian could travel to Sydney, but not the Mornington Peninsula town of Sorrento, Mr Foley said: “There’s still all sorts of reasons for why people need to move about across state jurisdictional areas, but in terms of how that applies, those anomalies … will progressively work themselves out.”

According to the latest commonwealth figures, 87.62 per cent of Victorians 16 and over had had at least a first dose of vaccine as of Thursday, including 0.47 per cent who had a first jab that day. The full vaccination rate for Victoria is at 63.81 per cent, including 1.16 per cent who had their second dose on Thursday.

Victoria is on track to reach 70 per cent double vaccination on October 21, five days ahead of the Andrews government’s schedule.

Based on the rate of second doses, Victoria will reach 80 per cent full vaccination on October 31 – also five days ahead of schedule.

Covid logistics chief Jeroen Weimar said Friday‘s 2179 new Covid cases showed Thursday’s record 2297 was not a “one-off high number”. He said 55 per cent of Friday’s new cases were in previously undiagnosed households.

Six deaths reported on Friday took Victoria’s death toll for the current outbreak to 131. There were 695 cases in Victorian hospitals, including 157 in intensive care, of whom 101 were on ventilators.