Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced the trans-Tasman bubble will open on Monday, April 19. 

Ardern, speaking moments ago, said the bubble will enable two-way quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia. 

"Cabinet was presented with advice today that the conditions for opening up quarantine free travel with Australia had been met," Ardern said.

"The Director General of Health considers the risk of transmission of Covid-19 from Australia to New Zealand to now be low and that quarantine-free travel would be safe to commence.

"Cabinet accepts that advice and is confident not only in the state of Australia but also in our own ability to manage a travel arrangement."

It will be the first time since March 14, 2020, that anyone will be able to enter New Zealand without at least 14 days in isolation. 

The borders have been closed to all but New Zealand citizens, permanent residents and special exemptions since March 19 last year, and since April 9 all arrivals have had to spend two weeks in managed isolation or quarantine.

Ardern said while Queensland has recently undergone an outbreak related to the border, this too looks contained and Cabinet believes any residual risk can be managed with additional protocols, such as pre-departure testing if needed.

The bubble opens at 11.59pm on Sunday, April 18.

"This is an important step forward in our Covid response and represents and arrangement I do not believe we have seen in any other part of the world, that is safely opening up international travel to another country while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and a commitment to keeping the virus out."

Watch the press conference here on RNZ:  

Travellers will, however, need to plan for the possibility of having travel disrupted if there is an outbreak.

The Government will introduce a similar alert level for Australia, effectively treating it as a region of New Zealand should there be an outbreak.

Officials and health teams will discuss new cases on both sides of the Tasman and there will be three possible responses for the bubble - continue, pause or suspend - depending on the scenario, and on a state-by-state basis.

It will be a case of "flyer beware" and there is a possibility travellers could be required to enter managed isolation.

Australian travellers will only be able to book "green zone" flights.

"That means that there will be no passengers on the flight that have come from anywhere but Australia in the last 14 days.

"They will also be flown by crew who have not flown on any high-risk routes for a set period of time."

Passengers will need to provide comprehensive information on how they can be contacted. They won't be allowed to fly if they have cold or flu symptoms and they'll be required to wear masks on flights.

They'll also be asked to download the Covid tracer App, will only travel through green zones at airports, and there will be random temperature tests. 

There were no new Covid-19 community cases to reported today, but there were 17 new positive COVID-19 border-related cases in managed isolation since the last update on Sunday.

It's estimated the bubble will free up around 1300 rooms within managed isolation each fortnight. The Government will retain 500 spaces as contingency, should they be needed as part of the trans-Tasman arrangement. 

The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 74 and the total number of confirmed cases since the first outbreak is 2,168.

In the past 7 days, 26,705 tests have been processed, with a seven-day rolling average up to yesterday of 3,815 tests processed.

NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,773,714 registered users.  

In the past 24 hours to 1pm, there have been 426,792 poster scans.

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