Queensland decision asks the question: should Canberra try to be a bubble?

However, the decision by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszcuk to include the ACT in a travel ban that is aimed at NSW residents could push more people into a pro-bubble camp.

The ACT has zero active cases of the disease, and since the start of May has had seven cases all up, none of which were examples of community transmission. Even when testing levels spiked due to a cluster of cases in Batemans Bay, the ACT's health system didn't seem to break a sweat.

Unlike in other places, the rate of compliance with home quarantine measures in the capital has been excellent - although that can partly be explained by the self-reporting measures currently in place. Anyone receiving a compliance check in the ACT at the moment is doing so because they self-reported to ACT authorities that they had visited a hotspot or a venue associated with a cluster in Sydney, meaning they are already doing the right thing.

Ms Palaszczuk justified the decision to ban ACT travellers from her state because a NSW resident had flown to the sunshine state through Canberra "putting everything we have in Queensland at risk".

The man will now face court in Queensland for breaking the rules about travelling from a hotspot, and as seems to be the case across the country, the disregard for rules shown by a minority has resulted in punitive measures for everybody.

It will be hard to swallow for Canberrans who have booked holidays to one of the few states that would take us, for those who thought they could see their loved ones without the help of a screen.

Because this isn't the first time the ACT has been lumped in with NSW when other states are making their decisions about their borders. When South Australia adjusted its border restrictions in July, it opened up to all states except Victoria. NSW and ACT residents are required to do two weeks of quarantine. Again the decision on the ACT was based not on the local situation, but on the NSW cases.

READ MORE:

It can be easy to dismiss these decisions as nothing more than cancelled holidays - and while we watch what happens in Victoria, surely we can get over that? But it affects the ACT economy too - people from those states will be cancelling trips here as well.

For people who live in the ACT and surrounding NSW towns, the idea of a state border has only ever really felt like a technicality. Chief Minister Andrew Barr has often said closing the border to NSW, or introducing some kind of bubble around the capital and its satellite towns would be a last resort.

On Wednesday he was pragmatic as ever, refusing to be drawn into any war of words, only warning that border closures and limits on travel were the reality for the forseeable future.

But as more options are closed to the ACT because of the situation in Sydney, more locals may warm to the idea of a Canberra bubble, no matter how much the term is usually hated locally.

Border closures and hotel quarantine measures are politically popular, especially in states where numbers of cases are low. While state leaders will say decisions are made only on health advice, looming polls cannot be discounted.

As the ACT's own election day approaches in October, and if the capital continues to be treated as a far-flung suburb of Sydney by other jurisdictions, Mr Barr may find he is under pressure to introduce limits that go further than recommendations against travel.