EMNI - 25 November 2021

Travellers to Norfolk Island will not have to pay for the COVID-19 test.The Commonwealth Government confirmed yesterday that domestic travellers will not have to pay for COVID-19 tests, which states, and territories require for entry. This announcement can be found at https://www.abc.net.au/.../qld-coronavirus.../100641922.Under our reopening requirements travellers from NSW, Victoria and the ACT from November 29 will require a negative PCR test for COVID-19 in the 72 hours before arriving on the island. 

At this point in time travellers from the other states and territories will not require the test. This however may change depending on the extent of COVID-19 circulating in these states and territories as they also reopen. The requirement to be fully vaccinated or undergo self-isolation on arrival until released by NIHRACS remains unchanged.

The flight to the island from both Sydney and Brisbane is a domestic flight originating from an international terminal. The test is therefore free providing it is undertaken at a state-run clinic and only a text message is required for the result. For entry into the island, we accept a text message result for the PCR test. Our requirements for travel are being made clear to the airlines to ensure that there are no problems for passengers boarding flights to the island.

Importance of COVID safe behaviours and practices as we reopen From next week we will be receiving visitors from areas of the mainland where there is on-going community transmission of COVID-19. Measures have been put in place associated with entry to the island to reduce the chance that the virus comes to the island, however it will eventually reach here, and we will be relying on COVID safe behaviours to ensure its local spread is minimised and can be traced.

Customer registers is a key measure to ensure we can undertake contact tracing on the island and businesses need to maintain these registers. Where customers have registered coming to your business or office using either the NSW or Queensland QR systems this is acceptable. If they cannot do this, then it is important that you ensure they use your paper-based register system to register them.

Similarly, it is important that businesses on the island have COVID safe plans that are being used and are understood by staff. These plans will need to be used when your business has a COVID positive customer, staff member or is a public exposure site. COVID safe plans prepared under the templates available from either NSW or Queensland are approved for use on the island.Both customer registers and approved COVID safe plans are a requirement of the current directions covering recovery operations. The Police will be commencing random checks of these to ensure that they are being used.For any questions about the COVID-19 response on Norfolk Island, please visit the Norfolk Island Regional Council website: http://www.norfolkisland.gov.nf/covid-19-advice-norfolk... in the first instance or contact Detective Sergeant Glenn Elder, IMT Incident Controller at IO-Norfolk-Island@afp.gov.au or +6723 22222. Alternatively, could you contact the Welfare Co-ordinator on 52777.25 November 2021George PlantEMNI Controller