Australia Covid live news update: NSW to end hotel quarantine, open international travel from November; Victoria records 2,179 cases

Well, ultimately this is about today, we are announcing about taking NSW to the world from the 1st of November. So from November 1 these dates will all marry up.

For those who are fully vaccinated, NSW says we welcome home every Australian overseas, we want tourism back, we want people back into work, we want to get our economy moving. That is what today’s announcement is all about.

Ultimately, we have got to weigh up the health advice and economic advice and the elected officials make the call. As the deputy premier said, it was a long meeting, a robust discussion, and it was a difficult decision to make, but ultimately we have to make calls to ensure that we keep communities safe as we open up.

And when we see the vaccination rates in Sydney higher than they are in regional NSW, it is a couple of weeks. It is two weeks. I know it will create some inconvenience.

We have provided additional financial support for those businesses in regional NSW, I know there will be different views on this, but ultimately I believe where the cabinet landed is the right call moving forward.

source: theguardian.com