Coronavirus: Jacinda Ardern to join Australia’s national cabinet meeting
Travellers could soon fly between Australia and New Zealand without undergoing 14 days of quarantine at either ends of the trip as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Australia’s National Cabinet are set to discuss the potential of the ‘trans-Tasman bubble’ on Tuesday.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison invited Ardern to the meeting with all state and territory premiers and chief ministers to discuss resuming flights between the two countries.
“If there is any country in the world with whom we can reconnect with first, undoubtedly that’s New Zealand,” Morrison said last week.
Ardern said the easing of travel restrictions is on the agenda, but the process would take time.
“Don’t expect this to happen in a couple of weeks’ time,” she said on Monday.
“As you can imagine, we need to make sure that we’re locking in the gains that all New Zealanders have helped us achieve, and make sure that we have health precautions in place to make sure we do this safely and well.”
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters previously said he had been in constant contact with his Australian counterparts.
“We are part of the wider Pacific where we don’t seem to have the kind of chaos that you’re getting in other parts of the world because of Australia’s and New Zealand’s influence in this part of the world at the same time,” he said in April.
“So thinking out loud, if we can get this system going with equivalence and where we represent a safeguard for both countries then it is something that we can in the long term be working on.”
Australia has 966 active coronavirus cases and New Zealand has 211 at the time of writing.
On Monday, New Zealand celebrated its first day without new COVID-19 cases since the peak of the pandemic on March 16.