For travellers who are in Melbourne, and who have not visited a location of interest in the 14 days before their flight, can book a return green flight from Victoria to New Zealand from tomorrow (9 June).
These are commercially operated flights and need to be booked directly with the airline.
Before your flight, you must have a negative pre-departure test taken less than 72 hours before departure, complete the Nau Mai Rā travel declaration and the health declaration at the airport to confirm you did not visit a location of interest.
Pre-departure tests cost around $120 to $180. You should not go to a free testing site, as their results may not have all the information needed for travel.
Testing labs must be able to issue you a dated report for you to present to officials.
It should have:
•traveller’s name
•traveller’s date of birth and/or passport number
•date and time the test was conducted
•name of testing lab
•test type
•test result.
Either a hard copy or an electronic copy (email/text message) of your negative test result, or a Fit to Fly Certificate, will be accepted. A text message will be accepted only if it includes an image of the laboratory result form.
Following an assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak in greater Melbourne, New Zealand’s Quarantine Free Travel pause with Victoria will be extended for 7 days. This will be reviewed on Wednesday 16 June.
Everyone who is eligible to fly from Victoria to New Zealand can book a return green flight, meaning they will not be required to isolate when they arrive home. They must provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure.
There are now 93 cases associated with the outbreak in greater Melbourne, spread over four clusters. Contact tracing efforts have identified more than 15,000 close contacts.
Queensland public health officials last night announced a new positive COVID-19 case in a person who breached Victoria lockdown rules and travelled from Melbourne, through regional New South Wales and into Queensland.
The husband of this positive case had originally tested negative but serology results in the past 24 hours showed that the couple are both towards the end of their illness.
The couple travelled through the New South Wales towns of Dubbo, Forbes, Gillenbah and Moree between June 1-4, and in Queensland through Toowoomba, Caloundra, Buddina and Baringa between June 5-8.
There are no new cases of COVID-19 to report in the community in New Zealand today.
There are two new cases to report in recent returnees in managed isolation facilities since the Ministry’s last update yesterday.
There are also two cases which have been deemed historical and are not considered infectious.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is two.
Two previously reported cases have now recovered.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 70 historical cases, out of a total of 524 cases. A case reported on 3 June has now been deemed historical and added to the historical cases count.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 24.
There are no new cases of COVID-19 to report in the community in New Zealand today.
There are 10 new cases to report in recent returnees in managed isolation facilities since the Ministry’s last update on Sunday.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is three.
Five previously reported cases have now recovered.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 67 historical cases, out of a total of 520 cases.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 22.
Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,336. There have been 173,005,553 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 3,727,605 deaths, reported to WHO
Of the new border cases:
Four cases who travelled together arrived on 26 May and tested positive around day 11/12.
Following the Victorian Government’s decision to extend their lockdown, New Zealand’s Quarantine Free Travel pause with Victoria will also be extended until Thursday 10 June at 11.59pm.
We acknowledge this extension will cause further inconvenience to those who have already had their travel plans disrupted. The Government has announced plans for the carefully managed commencement of return ‘green flights’ from Melbourne to NZ, from Tuesday 8 June at 11:59pm.
Travel on such flights will be limited to New Zealand citizens and Australian citizens who normally reside in New Zealand, people with humanitarian exemptions and critical workers who are stranded in Victoria.