Quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand will commence from 11.59pm Sunday April 18, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced this afternoon. 

Cabinet met and considered the situation, and decided the criteria to open a Trans-Tasman bubble had been met. 

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield also accepted the situation. 

"The Director-General of Health considers the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from Australia to New Zealand is low and that quarantine free travel is safe to commence," Jacinda says.

The Trans-Tasman travel will come under the disclaimer of “flyer beware”. 

She says such an international travel arrangement has not been seen anywhere else in the world in a country that has an elimination strategy.

Today is a "new chapter in our recovery," she says.

Documents have set out the types of scenarios, which could lead to the controlling and amending the travel arrangements. 

She says the settings "broadly" follow the alert level settings already in place in New Zealand.

If Australian states, for example, had short lockdown restrictions due to a COVID-19 outbreak, flights would be halted to that state. 

She said these precautions are not based on "hypotheticals".

New Zealanders would have to follow local restrictions if they were to be in Australia during an outbreak. 

Upon return, they may have to complete managed isolation if they return from a region with an outbreak. 

“Many of us haven’t traveled abroad in over a year, and we expect travel to be different than it was before COVID-19, and it will be,” Jacinda says. 

“When those in Australia make the welcome decision to travel to New Zealand, they will come on a ‘green zone’ arrangement.”

The arrangement will mean they have not travelled outside of the travel bubble in other parts of the world, or have cold or flu symptoms. 

Spot checks on individual’s body temperature and other infection control measures will be in place. 

And, just as there are alert level settings for managing cases in New Zealand, there will now be a framework for managing New Zealanders in the event of an outbreak in Australia.

This involves three possible scenarios: "Continue, pause, suspend".

To be eligible to travel to or from New Zealand on a quarantine-free flight, people must not have had a positive COVID-19 test result in the previous 14-day period.

As well as this, they must not be awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test taken during that 14-day period.

When those in Australia decide to come to New Zealand, they will book on a green zone flight.

That means that there will be no passengers on that flight who have come from anywhere but Australia in the last 14 days.

Travellers will also be flown by crew who have not flown on any high risk routes for a set period of time.

And, those who do fly, they will be required to wear a mask on their flight – as is the current requirement.

It is estimated that the bubble will free up 1,000 to 1,300 rooms per fortnight within MIQ.

There are also a small number of facilities that the Government consider to have only been suitable for travellers in quarantine from low risk countries.

With the opening of travel, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says, "We will look to decommission these facilities – but in the meantime we are considering whether they could be used for other low risk countries, such as the Pacific Islands and potentially allow RSE workers into the country".