Transtasman travel bubble: Two Australian states to open to New Zealanders in fortnight

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has announced New South Wales and Northern Territory borders will open to New Zealand travellers from October 16.

He said NSW and the Northern Territory would welcome Kiwis and not require them to go into quarantine, saying the decision was taken on the best medical advice.

But a spokesperson for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the rules for travellers had not changed from New Zealand's perspective. That means New Zealanders returning from travel to Australia would still need to go into quarantine. Australian tourists can also still not travel here.

McCormack said the arrangement would take place from a minute after midnight on October 16, saying it would be welcome with "our New Zealand friends" and people in the two states.

He said South Australia was ready to participate and would probably be the next cab off the rank.

The move would free up an extra 325 spaces for Australians to return home.

He said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wanted to have Australians going to New Zealand and the conditions for that were a matter for her.

The Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Australia and the foreign ministers of both countries have spoken about the travel bubble today, McCormack said.

"The opportunity is there and there are plenty of tourism operators in Western Australian wanting business," he said.

If Western Australia wants to avail themselves of the travel bubble they only have to say the word, he said.

"We want to open up Australia to the world. This is the first part of it," McCormack said.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the National Press Club in Canberra today that New Zealanders were "very, very welcome" to spend money in New South Wales and South Australia.

However, he said he would not be able to announce Australians could travel to New Zealand, as that was New Zealand's problem to solve.

Ardern told reporters at Labour's housing and resource management policy announcement on Friday afternoon it was still too unsafe to be opening New Zealand's borders to Australia.

"In our view we are not ready to have quarantine-free travel with Australia. They have a very different strategy to us, and so they're making that decision ... but for now we of course have to keep our New Zealanders safe."

She urged New Zealanders to spend their tourism dollars domestically, and cautioned that those going to Australia would have to go through isolation when returning.

"I encourage New Zealanders to think about spending their dollars here locally."

She says the pressure for New Zealand to open up has been "the same the whole way through", implying that Australian states opening their borders would not affect her decision.

"The National Party in particular have called for us ... to open up the border. We have resisted that because we want to keep New Zealanders safe. We will not open the borders for quarantine-free travel with Australia until it is safe to do so because doing it too early risks losing all of the freedoms we already have in our economy."

- Additional reporting: RNZ