Festivals are coming soon! Scott Morrison changes national guidelines

Scott Morrison has changed national coronavirus guidelines to eventually allow fans to go to the footy and music lovers to attend festivals.

Step three restrictions, which are due to be implemented by states and territories in in July, originally capped numbers in a venue at 100 people.

The national cabinet today agreed to remove that number and allow venues to host an unlimited number of people as long as each patron has four square metres of space each. 

Mr Morrison said stadiums with fewer than 40,000 seats will be able to host 25 per cent of their capacity, paving the way for fans to return to sports games and for seated and ticketed festivals and concerts to return. 

Stadiums with more than 40,000 seats will be get individual guidance on how many people they are allowed.

Funerals and churches will also be allowed an unlimited number of socially distanced people. 

Mr Morrison said nightclubs were unlikely to re-open because it would not be commercially viable for them to do so. 

In a warning to state premiers who have refused to open their borders, the Prime Minister said the international borders will not open until all state borders have come down.

This means international students cannot return to Australia and the travel bubble with New Zealand cannot start until all Australians are free to move around the country. 

However, Mr Morrison was hopeful that internal borders would be gone by July and pilots to let international students return could begin.

‘On international students we’ll be working closely on states and territories, firstly on a pilot basis, to enable, in a very controlled setting, for international students to be able to come to Australia,’ he said.

stadiums with fewer than 40,000 seats will be able to host 25 per cent of their capacity, paving the way for fans to return to sports games. Pictured: The MCG

Mr Morrison also warned protesters not to attend Black Lives Matter rallies because they are not safe.

Two protests are scheduled this weekend in Perth and Sydney after the death of black security guard George Floyd in the US.

‘The medical advice is that this is an unsafe thing to do. It puts not only your own health at risk, but it puts other people’s lives at risk,’ Mr Morrison said.

Chief Medical officer Brendan Murphy agreed, saying protests are dangerous. 

‘Those sort of events where you have a large number of people who don’t know each other and who we can’t contact trace easily or track one of the highest risk events,’ he said.

‘You cannot make them safe, despite all the attempts of organisers.’

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Australian cities in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Pictured: A protest in Sydney on Tuesday