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Travel incentive to encourage vaccination

Health Minister Greg Hunt has promoted access to international travel when borders reopen as an incentive for Australians to roll up their sleeves for coronavirus jabs.

May 11, 2021, updated May 11, 2021
Photo: Richard Long/News Images/Sipa USA

Photo: Richard Long/News Images/Sipa USA

The Morrison government is creating a three-principle path for reopening, including travel bubbles, immunisation and potential changes to quarantine rules.

Hunt said global medical evidence about the impact of vaccination on transmission would guide any changes.

“There’s near-universal prevention of serious illness, hospitalisation and loss of life,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“There is a high prevention of infection and re-transmission, but clearly not universal.”

He said a progressive opening would be important for hope and understanding across Australia.

“Is travel an incentive for people to be vaccinated? Absolutely,” the health minister said.

Singapore and Pacific nations are likely to be the next countries with New Zealand-style green lanes allowing quarantine-free travel to and from Australia.

“It is foreseeable that there will be lesser requirements on those who are coming into Australia if they have been vaccinated,” Hunt said.

“That’s a very important incentive, and a point of hope, and a pathway to normalisation.”

Senior coalition minister Simon Birmingham said Australia’s border closure was the most important factor in keeping the virus out of the country.

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Despite the budget’s 2022 assumption, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the international border would only open when safe to do so.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese criticised the government for having mixed messages on when borders were likely to open.

He also lashed the coalition for abrogating responsibility to Australians stranded in India under a travel ban, which has jail and fines tied to it, set to expire on Saturday.

“First to lock them out and then to lock them up,” Albanese told a caucus meeting.

More than 2.6 million vaccinations have been administered across Australia, while a further 351,000 Pfizer doses have also arrived from overseas for medical regulators to test.’

-AAP

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