"The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly, has today confirmed that the latest community transmission outbreak in Victoria has been 'confined to Melbourne'. With this declaration the NSW Premier can freely open the NSW Victorian border without risk," Innes Willox Chief Executive of the national employer association Ai Group, said today.
"While there were new cases announced today in Victoria which is worrying, the CMO says more than 99 per cent of cases are in Melbourne and the Victorian Premier has also confirmed that there are only a small number of cases in regional Victoria.
"With Melbourne effectively cut off from the rest of the state and the country, travel to NSW from there would be extremely limited. The border could now be safely drawn around the Victorian capital which would allow regional Victorian and NSW towns to be freed of restrictions.
"We would urge the NSW Government to adopt the rules applying to the Queensland-NSW border whereby as of today anyone can enter Queensland unless they have been in a COVID-19 hotspot such as Melbourne in the last 14 days. This is policed by random checks rather than border barriers and the current permit system could be readily removed in NSW.
"The closure of Melbourne has delivered a big hit to business and community confidence and the positive message sent by the reopening of the NSW border would provide a much needed boost for us all," Mr Willox said.
