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A CONSENSUS that all states except Western Australia will aim to reopen their borders by December has given struggling Cairns tourism operators a glimmer of hope and a date to work towards.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison walked out of a national cabinet meeting on Friday with a new view on how the interstate restriction process would work.

“All the states and territories sit in a different position and they’re coming from a different point of risk,” he said.

“And so it is not surprising that they all have different outlooks about what their challenges are right now and what they might be in the months ahead.

“So we’ve decided that this notion of 100 per cent, absolute consensus on any issue is not a way that the national cabinet can indeed work.”

Only WA did not agree to work towards a December border opening.

This meant Queenslanders finally had a new indication on when interstate travel would resume.

Cairns Regional Council Mayor Bob Manning said he believed it was time to put more emphasis on saving the ailing economy.

“My attitude towards this has probably been a bit conservative,” he said.

“But I think now, and it’s probably got a consensus of opinion, we ought to be trying to progress this as much as we can.

“If there’s evidence of some sort of risk, then that’s got to be looked at as a day-by-day thing.

“We’re at a stage now where we should be trying to push this and making decisions based on what’s best for the economy of this nation.”

The new December reopening target comes well after the October 31 state election in Queensland.

Mr Manning suspected that politics was playing a role in how the situation was being handled.

“We want to manage the risk as best we can, but we also want to get ourselves into a recovery position as quickly as we can,” he said.

“Otherwise the damage may end up being greater than the cure.”

The Far North tourism industry is losing more than $7 million a day, $4 million of which can be attributed to the loss of interstate travel.