When the strict travel restrictions ease, but international travel is still off the cards, there’s talk of opening up an exclusive travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand.
Being able to travel between Australia and New Zealand again soonish? Yes, please!
Ok, calm down for a second. While nothing is official at this stage, the New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has confirmed that there are behind the scenes discussions happening about a possible bubble.
“Yes, we are exploring that,” he said during an interview with ABC Breakfast last week.
He commented that both countries had “similarly declining cases of the virus”.
“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. New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters
“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.”
The concept would be a stride forward in helping the tourism industry get back on to its feet.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, however, is not making any promises. But let’s hope he does.
“We are aware of their interest in that, it has not got much beyond that,” he said.
“So we are aware of that, but we are not at present contemplating any border changes at the moment”.
“We will work closely with New Zealand, we have all along.”
We will be watching on very closely indeed.