Border closure prompts PM to issue Kiwi travel omen

PRIME Minister Scott Morrison is warning states such as Queensland risk being overtaken by international competitors if they stay shut.

Mr Morrison flagged the possibility tourists from the southern states could be jetting off to New Zealand before they were allowed to reach tourist mecca the Gold Coast.

“I was speaking with (NZ) Prime Minister Ardern this morning, and we’ll continue to have our discussions about the trans-Tasman safe travel zone, and it may well be that Sydneysiders can fly to Auckland before they can fly to Perth, or even the Gold Coast, for that matter,” he said at the National Press Club yesterday.

“But I can assure you I won’t be holding back on expanding the size of our markets for our goods and our services to wait for some other borders to clear.”

Federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham fired another shot at the Queensland Government over its ongoing border closure, warning it risked inflicting more damage on the struggling economy.

“We don’t want (the economy) to get any worse than it otherwise needs to be and in a state like Queensland, it is so heavily tourism dependent, it’s crucial they give their businesses a chance to survive through this,” he said.

He added internal border closures were a “real concern” as they threatened the likelihood of an international travel bubble opening up with NZ.

“I mean one state shouldn’t hold up the progress of other states but I could understand why, if you were in NZ, you’d be sitting there going ‘If the Australian states can’t work it out among themselves, why would we start to allow travel to occur’?” he said.

“That is a real concern for me that we could end up with a situation where New Zealand delays such an agreement and therefore some Australian states ready miss out because of the difficulties being imposed.”

Mr Birmingham said Queensland had the nation’s most tourism-dependent economy so it was facing the biggest threat to jobs and businesses by staying isolated.

“Queenslanders have the most at stake and the most to lose if these border restrictions stay in place too long,” he said.

He said states were not being encouraged to “do anything that isn’t safe”.

“Things have improved greatly from where they were a couple of months ago when these restrictions were put in place and as long as each of the steps of opening up within states can be done safely, then we should see the step taken to open up across states as well,” he said.