The NSW Premier on Monday said about five million NSW residents would need to be vaccinated before international travel would be given the green light. This comes after the federal budget last week included an assumption that borders would gradually reopen from mid-2022. Former Labor leader Bill Shorten on Tuesday said the government should be clear about what Australia’s vaccination goals were. “I think Gladys is probably showing more leadership than Scott at this point,” Mr Shorten told Today.“Sooner or later we have to say to Australians ‘if you want to travel overseas, open up, you don’t have the luxury of saying you don’t need the jab’.”Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations chair Jane Halton said the US and UK had shown that you can change travel restrictions once a significant portion of the population had been vaccinated. “I think Gladys Berejiklian is on the right track,” Ms Halton told Sunrise. “We know we can’t open up in this way until we are vaccinated.”Scott Morrison has warned it was not yet safe for Australia to take steps to enable the lifting of international travel restrictions. The federal government in April dumped its vaccine targets after advice was changed to no longer recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine as the preferred jab for people aged under 50. Agriculture Minister David Littleproud was on Tuesday asked if vaccine targets linked to Australia’s reopening were a good idea.“If the chief medical officer gives us the advice, to that extent, then obviously we will,” Mr Littleproud told ABC RN.“But, obviously, we also need to see that the chief medical officers of all the states and territories will also sign off on that.”Mr Littleproud said there was no point opening up Australia’s international border if state and territory leaders were still imposing restrictions. “While we can stamp the visas, we can only stamp them once the health protocols are agreed by the states,” he said. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said Australia was facing a unique challenge because it had suppressed the virus. Mr Perrottet said federal health officials needed to tell states the strategy – vaccination rates or other measures – so they could understand the path to a successful reopening. He said NSW’s five million vaccine goal, based on their medical advice, was “very reasonable”. “If we have that as a target, then we know what we’re working towards,” Mr Perrottet told ABC RN.“That is OK if we don’t meet the target, but at least we know as a country, as people, what we need to achieve in order for those borders to open.”Mr Perrottet said he understood that hard borders were popular but reasoned that the governments were appointed to lead, not follow public opinion. Virgin Australia chief executive Jane Hrdlicka has also backed the international border reopening when a large part of the population is vaccinated.“Some people may die but it will be way smaller than with the flu,” Ms Hrdlicka told the QUT Business Leaders Forum in Brisbane on Monday.
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