New South Wales premier rules out hard border closure with Victoria despite outbreak

MELBOURNE, Jun 24, 2020, 9News, AAP. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has ruled out a hard border closure with Victoria, despite a fresh COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne, 9News reported.

Speaking on Today, Ms Berejiklian said it “doesn’t make sense” to close state lines because it will directly affect border towns such as Albury-Wodonga.

“It is a huge imposition on a community like that when you have a hard border closure which is why NSW and Victoria have kept borders open,” Ms Berejiklian said.

There were 10 new coronavirus cases recorded in NSW overnight, but all were returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

This morning the premier doubled down on her harsh warning yesterday to NSW residents that they should not be travelling interstate and they should not travel to the six identified COVID-19 “hotspots” around Melbourne.

“I acknowledge this could easily happen in NSW if we’re not careful,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“That’s why it is important for us to support each other, support what citizens in other, support what citizens in other states are going through and have a common-sense approach.”

Ms Berejiklian said urging people not to travel into or outside of the hotspots was “common sense management” of the outbreak.

Victoria recorded another 17 new infections yesterday, taking the state’s total active cases to about 140.

The origins of 11 of these are still being investigated.

By contrast, new cases in NSW have only risen by 19 in the past week.

Authorities have largely pinned the spike in cases on large family gatherings.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said governments were working with non-English speaking communities to better communicate how to stop the virus from spreading.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews warned people could not pretend the virus has gone.

“It doesn’t matter how many people are doing the wrong thing – everybody, everybody will pay the price if we get to a point where restrictions either localised or across the state need to be re-introduced,” Mr Andrews said.

With AAP