NSW to charge $3000 for Returning international travellers for hotel quarantine

mode1 mode1 Jul 12, 2020 05:00 1369 0

NSW to charge $3000 for Returning international travellers for hotel quarantine

International travellers returning to New South Wales will be charged for hotel quarantine in NSW .  Premier Gladys Berejiklian saying she doesn’t believe it’s fair taxpayers continue to foot the bill for Australians who “have had three months to return home”.

Travellers returning to New South Wales will have to pay $3,000 for their fortnight stay in hotel quarantine from next week.

The new charges apply to everyone entering the country, including Australian citizens.

Additional adults from the same family will be charged a further $1,000 from Saturday, while the bill for a child over three years will be $500. It will be free for children younger than three. That means a family of four - two adults and two children - will fork out $5,000 to quarantine for the two weeks.

The charge will come into effect from 12:01am next Saturday and will apply to any new flight tickets bought after midnight tonight.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state had undertaken a "mammoth task" in hosting more than 35,000 returned travellers and said it had processed people at a higher rate than other states.

New South Wales had already spent more than $50 million on hotels for quarantine since the travel ban began.

Ms Berejiklian said hardship provisions would be available, but people had been given "ample notice" of tightening conditions.

"Cost hasn't been the main challenge for us, it has been making sure we get the logistics right," Ms Berejiklian said.

"New South Wales is still processing more than six or seven times what other states are processing and, on that basis, we want to make sure we are putting resources where they are needed."

She said the "absolute focus" needed to be on contact tracing and the next four weeks were critical.

"We are definitely at a crossroads in New South Wales," she said.

"We have the chance now to really clamp down on community transmission or else unfortunately we'll go down the track of what Victoria is going through."