Australians free to travel to New Zealand without quarantine

Australians are free to travel to New Zealand for the first time in more than a year.

The first trans-Tasman bubble flight from Sydney took off on Monday morning.

Those who travel will not need to quarantine on arrival.

New Zealand’s tourism minister told Ross and Russel there wasn’t much resistance to the bubble across the ditch.

“To be brutally honest with you, I’ve never seen such love for our Australian cousins,” he said.

“I’m a little bit worried the next time the All Blacks play the Wallabies there won’t be a Haka, there’ll be some form of group hug.

“We are welcoming Australians with open arms in a way we never have before.”

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Today show reporter Christine Ahern says it was unusual to see signs of life at an international airport again.

“Pretty much 99 per cent of the people I spoke to were family waiting to go over and visit their family they haven’t seen in 13 months or so,” she told 3AW Breakfast.

“There’s babies that have been born that haven’t seen their grandparents.”

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