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Huge changes coming to Australian border restrictions as swathes of Sydney are given the green light to enter Victoria – so is your suburb on the list?
- Victorian borders will open to thousands of Sydneysiders from 6pm Monday
- Travellers coming from 25 of Sydney’s 35 local government areas need permit
- Ten LGAs across Sydney remain off limits due to recent coronavirus cases
The Victorian border will finally been opened to thousands of Sydneysiders on Monday night.
The changes announced by the Victorian government on Monday morning come into effect at 6pm.
Ten local government areas across Sydney remain off limits as red zones, which means they can’t cross the Victorian border without an exemption, exception or essential worker permit.
Those red zone areas include Blacktown, Burwood, Canada Bay, Canterbury Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Inner West, Liverpool Parramatta and Strathfield, where recent coronavirus cases have been recorded.
The other 25 local government areas across Sydney will be declared as ‘orange zones’, which means those coming from those areas can enter Victoria but must have a permit.
Residents from some parts of Sydney can enter Victoria with a valid permit from 6pm Monday. Pictured are interstate travellers arriving at Melbourne Airport earlier in January
They must also get tested within 72 hours of entering Victoria and isolate until they return a negative result.
‘Travellers from other areas of Greater Sydney, Blue Mountains and Wollongong will no longer require an exemption permit and can enter Victoria, as long as they have not been in a currently listed red zone in the past 14 days,’ the Department of Health and Human Services said.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews added: ‘We’re not seeing spread or contacts in isolation in those other 25 local government areas.’
Local government areas in NSW’s border bubble will also become green zones, where travellers from these areas will not be required to get tested.
Victoria will declare regional NSW as a green zone from Monday night, which means those crossing the border don’t need to get tested. Pictured is border checkpoint in Mallacoota
It comes as NSW recorded no new locally-acquired coronavirus cases on Monday.
A day earlier, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian slammed her Victorian counterpart for not reopening the border sooner.
‘He’s not been in touch with me at all but I also say that should have occurred quite a while back because we don’t have a hot spot in New South Wales,’ Ms Berejiklian told reporters on Sunday.
‘We are, of course, dealing with a result of an outbreak from a month ago, but I think everybody would agree that closing a border of such significance is a really big deal and I stress that we waited until Victoria had in excess of – I think it was 180 cases they had the day after we announced the border closure.’
‘Just to put things into perspective, those decisions are difficult ones, they affect a lot of people and I would just ask people to really think about those decisions before they’re taken.’
Meanwhile, Australians have been warned the the nation’s borders will probably remain closed for most of 2021.
Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy says that ‘substantial border restrictions’ will continue throughout 2021 and quarantine of returned Australians will be in place for ‘some time’.
A new ‘traffic light’ system has been introduced for anyone looking to cross the Victorian borders. Pictured is a motorist passing through a border checkpoint in Mallacoota in the state’s East Gippsland region
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