Australia will allow New Zealanders to enter two of its eight states and territories within a fortnight but New Zealand is not yet returning the favour.

The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced the plan on Friday after both nations closed their borders in mid-March at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Travellers from New Zealand must not have been in a designated Covid-19 hotspot in the 14 days before they fly to Australia. A hotspot is defined as having a rolling three-day average of three cases a day.

Australias deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said on Friday that from 16 October the bubble would free up 325 additional places in hotel quarantine in Sydney each week.

New South Wales and the Northern Territory were the only two jurisdictions to take up the offer for the bubble at the last national cabinet meeting.

McCormack said South Australia was likely the next cab off the rank. The Nationals leader said if Queensland were to agree to the plan it would free up another 250 places in quarantine a week.

Australians would not be permitted to travel to New Zealand for now, McCormack said, and that decision was very much in prime minister [Jacinda] Arderns court at the moment.

A spokesperson for Ardern said her position remained unchanged, with the earliest possible date for a mutual bubble remaining Christmas-time.

The trans-Tasman bubble has been discussed at length since May, with two dates for its possible inception having already sailed by on 1 July and 1 September.

Community outbreaks of Covid-19 in both countries have prevented the bubble, but Morrison has appeared far more committed to the concept than Ardern, who has used vague language and refused to commit to a deadline.

Some domestic tourism operators in New Zealand expressed concern that local tourism dollars would now head offshore, but most Kiwis expressed scorn at the one-way nature of the arrangement, saying they would not bother with a holiday in Australia if it meant quarantining to the tune of NZ$3,000 on their return.

Kiwis also said they would not feel safe with the arrangement until it was reciprocal and mutually agreed.

McCormack said people arriving in New Zealand from other Pacific island nations that are permitted to enter New Zealand could then come to Australia and work picking fruit or shearing sheep, once they had completed the required 14 days in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the Queensland premier, Anastacia Palaszczuk, announced changes to Covid-19 restrictions, including allowing Queenslanders to stand at a bar and drink from 4pm. Outdoor events will increase from 500 to 1,000 people, and outdoor stadiums will be allowed to move up from 50% to 75% of capacity.

From 1 November, all New South Wales residents or Queenslanders returning from NSW will be able to enter Queensland with a border pass without having to quarantine for two weeks. The re-opening is subject to NSW recording 28 days of no community transmission.

On Friday, NSW reported its seventh day in a row of no locally-acquired Covid-19 cases. The four new cases reported were returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

The Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, also announced his state would reopen its borders to the ACT, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory from 26 October. It may also be opened to NSW, depending on community transmission over the next few weeks.

Victoria was excluded from both the Queensland and Tasmanian announcements, as the state records a steady decline in active cases.

The Victorian attorney general, Jill Hennessy, announced on Friday a reset of the hotel quarantine program, after the government was grilled after revelations nine staff at health hotels for Covid-positive residents had tested positive for the virus between July and August.

On Wednesday evening, Spotless contractors working in the Novotel in South Wharf were pulled out mid-shift and replaced with Victoria police and government staff.

Hennessy said this shift was part of the reset of the program, which meant isolating for Victorian residents who cannot isolate at home, frontline workers and returned travellers all in the one program.

Following evidence heard in the hotel quarantine inquiry that no ministers were being regularly updated about hotel quarantine, Hennessy said she was receiving daily briefings on the operations of the program, and there were clear processes in place for staff or residents to report issues.

We are working very, very hard to make sure that we have got in place a workforce that is stable, secure and very, very focused to the task at hand, and that is keeping Victorians safe, as well as our workforce safe, she said.

We are feeling very comfortable and confident about the changes we have made.

The chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, said the genomic data for six of the nine cases in hotel quarantine since July, as well as the contact tracing done, indicated the cases were not picked up working in hotel quarantine.

The cases that occurred in these settings were absolutely a reflection of the very substantial community transmission in Melbourne at that time and, in fact, cleaning services are a vulnerable cohort for infection, he said.

We saw a number of cleaners who developed infection right through that period.

Sutton did, however, confirm two of the workers had been working at the hotel while infectious but were not showing any symptoms.

There are currently 55 people in quarantine, including a family of eight connected to an outbreak at a butcher shop in Chadstone.

Victoria reported seven new cases of Covid-19 overnight, with two additional deaths: one male and one female in their 80s.

Metropolitan Melbournes rolling 14-day average dropped to 12.8, with the number of mystery cases down to 14 between 16 and 29 September.

There are 261 active cases in Victoria, including 40 among healthcare workers and 111 in aged care. There are 38 Victorians in hospital, four of whom are in intensive care and three on ventilators.

There were 12,550 tests conducted in the previous day.

Temperatures on the weekend in Melbourne are expected to reach 28C, and the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said people should not delay getting tested due to the good weather.

On Friday afternoon, NSW Health said it was contacting passengers and crew who were on Jetstar flight JQ510 from Melbourne to Sydney at 11am on 27 September, after one of the passengers tested positive on day two of hotel quarantine in Sydney.

NSW Health said the majority of passengers on the flight were already in mandatory hotel quarantine, but 47 passengers with special permits and exemptions, and the crew, were not in quarantine and were now being advised to get tested and isolate for 14 days even if they received a negative result.

The ACT also announced that from 9 October gatherings would be increased up to 200 people, with venues of between 101 and 200 sq metres able to host 50 people.

Capacity at indoor seated venues would be lifted to 50% capacity, up to 1,000 people, and cinemas could increase capacity up to 200 people.

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Australia-New Zealand travel bubble to partially open within two weeks - The Guardian