Anzac Day at MCG preparing to welcome back capacity crowds

THE AFL is cautiously optimistic a full house will be allowed at the MCG’s Anzac Day blockbuster after the national cabinet decided large ticketed events could safely return to 100 per cent capacity.

Acting Premier James Merlino and other state and territory leaders accepted the medical advice at Friday’s meeting, but the AFL still needs state authorities to agree to lift the crowd limit above 75 per cent.

While it has been six weeks since COVID-19 was transmitted in the community in Victoria, the state government has been cautious to ease limits on big events, even as West Australian Premier Mark McGowan gave the all-clear to capacity crowds at Perth Stadium.

Speaking after the national cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the crowd boost was one of a series of principles agreed to guide the reopening of Australia’s economy and society this year.

The leaders committed to prioritise the local containment of new outbreaks — after a series of snap lockdowns across the country — in a way that would keep state borders open.

Mr Morrison said the national medical expert panel had also been tasked with providing specific advice about whether successfully vaccinating vulnerable Australians would allow those who had received the jab to travel overseas and avoid hotel quarantine.

Further work is also under way to decide if Australians who are stuck overseas but have been vaccinated can return and quarantine at home. “We want to open up more, we want to do it safely, we want to ease restrictions,” Mr Morrison said.

He said the medical advice would determine “the marks we have to meet to enable us to start opening up Australia more than we are now”.

The national cabinet leaders wanted to treat COVID-19 more like the flu, Mr Morrison said, and the vaccine rollout meant the virus could circulate without the “disastrous outcomes we’re seeing overseas”.

“We’re not at that point yet but I think we soon will be.”

Other principles agreed by national cabinet included continuing to improve the hotel quarantine system, ensuring outbreak responses were proportionate, and protecting the economy as well as Australians’ health.