Canberra businesses could miss out on trade as travel restrictions ease

As of midday Saturday, ACT residents are allowed to travel to an expanded list of towns for any reason without having to quarantine on return or seek a travel exemption.

The regional bubble now includes Perisher Valley, Thredbo, Bowral, Mittagong, Bega and Batemans Bay among other regional postcodes.

People travelling to these areas will need to abide by the NSW restrictions, which requires showing proof of full vaccination to visit shops and restaurants and to have up to 10 visitors at home.

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said Canberrans should only gather with people who lived within the regional bubble.

"What we would be encouraging Canberrans to do is to abide by not only the letter of the restrictions but the spirit of them as well," she said.

Canberra Business Chamber chief executive Graham Catt said while the loosened travel restrictions were good news for the community, it would be a bitter pill for a lot of small retailers in the territory.

"They're already looking at other venues and other types of businesses and struggling to understand why the restrictions that apply to them, the ability to only do click and collect or very limited service to people by appointment applies to them, where they can see a cafe, for example, serving 50 people in an outdoor setting," Mr Catt said.

"I think to then try and understand why it is that a Canberran can travel to NSW to do their shopping in person, but not be able to take advantage of that trade themselves is going to be really difficult thing for them to understand."

Mr Catt said it was a good opportunity to reconsider the existing pathway forward and adjust the restrictions on retail businesses. He said the next two weeks would be particularly challenging because there was no financial support from the government and the click and collect restrictions remained in place.

"As we follow that plan I think as businesses are able to show that they can trade safely, that we can still achieve those public health outcomes, that there is the opportunity there to actually tweak some of those settings," he said.

ACT Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee said it was time for the ACT government to review the COVID-19 restrictions on businesses.

"How is it fair that Canberrans can now cross the border into Queanbeyan to do their shopping freely but our local businesses are forced to trade under stricter restrictions?" she said.

"Our local businesses have borne the economic brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown and time and time again this government fails to look after businesses doing it tough."

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Ms Stephen-Smith said the chief health officer wanted to maintain the current setting for two weeks to gradually ease out of restrictions.

"We haven't been in nine weeks of lockdown only to see as we open up really quickly, rapid escalation escalation in case numbers before we reach that full effective vaccination rate and get well beyond 80 per cent double dose," she said.

The ACT recorded 20 new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday. Fourteen of the cases were linked to know cases or clusters. There were 15 patients in hospital with COVID-19 and 10 of these were in intensive care.

Ms Stephen-Smith urged people to get tested at the first sign of symptoms rather than attending the emergency department when they were already very sick.

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