Australian border to reopen for first time in pandemic

AUSTRALIA will reopen its international border from November, giving long-awaited freedoms to vaccinated citizens and their relatives.

Since March 2020, Australia has had some of the world's strictest border rules - even banning its own people from leaving the country.

The policy has been praised for helping to suppress Covid, but it has also controversially separated families.

"It's time to give Australians their lives back," PM Scott Morrison said.

People would be eligible to travel when their state's vaccination rate hit 80%, Mr Morrison told a press briefing on Friday.

Travel would not immedi ately be open to foreigners, but the government said it was working "towards welcoming tourists back to our shores".

Amy Hayes, who lives in the English town of Reading, Berkshire, and has not been back to Queensland in nearly three years, said it was "en couraging to see things moving in the right direction".

Image caption,Amy Hayes (right) misses her grandfather (left), Alby Park

"But I'll believe the borders have reopened when I see it and hear the stories of strand ed Aussies being able to get home uninhibited," she told BBC News.

"Also, all my family and friends are in Brisbane and so although I might be able to fly to Sydney or Melbourne, what would be the point when the Queensland border is still closed with no indication of when it'll open?"

"I'm just one of thousands of stranded Aussies," Ms Hayes added. "My story is not unique at all. I'm fortunate in that I have not been subjected to the cruelty of having to grieve for a loved one overseas or in quar antine, or had any emergency to travel back for. I'm grateful every day for that. - BBC