Queensland Government to allow border opening to northern NSW

The Queensland Government has announced that areas of northern NSW are to be part of a ‘border bubble’ to allow freer travel.

With Queensland having recorded no new cases of COVID-19, the bubble has been created to enable the movement of residents within the NSW border zone into Queensland, and for Queenslanders to travel down into the NSW border zone.

Advising that residents of the Byron Shire, Ballina, Lismore, the Richmond Valley and Glen Innes council areas will be added to the bubble from 1am on 1st October, Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk today stated “residents will be able to apply for a border pass and then they will be able to freely travel around Queensland.

“Queenslanders will also be able to travel there as well.

“I think this is a great effort to consider how we can make our border zones more effective but also to looking at these areas have a lot in common with Queensland.

“They usually do a lot of their business in Queensland so we believe that this is the right measure to take and we have also been in contact with the New South Wales authorities to advise them of this today as well.”

Noting that the Coronavirus situation on the NSW north coast was looking promising, Queensland Chief Health Officer, Dr Jeanette Young stated “we’ve not seen any cases along those border areas for quite some time and we have also not seen cases north of Sydney for quite a while. So it’s quite safe to open up those areas.

“We know that people who live along that border actually have a lot more to do with Queensland than they do with NSW and we know the difficulties it’s caused those communities.”

Dr Young said there were still cases of concern in NSW, so the rest of the state will still remain a declared hot spot.

Images: The 'border bubble' may increase visitation to the Gold Coast (top) and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (below).