ACCI releases staged international reopening plan

ACCI has published a plan to successfully reopen Australia to other countries in a series of controlled, risk-proportionate stages which will minimise the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 going forward without compromising health.

Reopening Australia: Part Two focuses on how we can begin preparing to safely reopen our international borders and follows ACCI’s first proposal on domestic policies.

Acting CEO Jenny Lambert said: “Prior to the Budget, discussions were had which explored ways to manage vaccinated people separately to the unvaccinated population – to get them travelling again, in and out of quarantine faster and with far less restrictions. That conversation has come to a halt since the Budget revealed international travel wouldn’t commence significantly until 2022 – the hallmark of our plan is to reignite that conversation.

“We remain committed to ensuring business is part of the solution to the COVID economic crisis, however international restrictions continue to drag heavily on the economy.

“Australia is losing billions of dollars in international tourism, education and other export industries, and our country-wide skills and labour shortages are not abating, particularly in regional areas. We need to explore the options in this proposal and have these discussions now.

“ACCI proposes a four-staged plan that centres around the principle that Australia’s reopening to the rest of the world should be a risk managed, staged process that is interoperable with other national systems. The plan overlays the three dimensions of risk:  whether the  traveller is vaccinated or not, the country level of risk that the traveller is coming from or going to, and where Australia’s vaccination program is up to.

“The plan has been finalised with the assistance of our members, and on the back of ongoing discussions with our members, DFAT, PM&C and the OECD.”

Read Reopening Australia: Part Two – International reopening.

Read Reopening Australia: Part One – Domestic reopening and living with COVID.