Two states have finally set dates on when their borders will come down after heavy pressure from Scott Morrison.
Queensland will open up to tourists on 10 July while South Australia will remove its border restrictions on 20 July.
Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT have yet to set a date.
Motorists are stopped at a checkpoint on the Gold Coast Highway at Coolangatta in March
From 10 July Australians will be able to visit the holiday hotspot of Noosa in Queensland
Mr Morrison, who admitted on Thursday he was getting ‘frustrated’ with reluctant premiers, hailed the move which gives hope to thousands of ailing tourism businesses.
‘I welcome the opening of the borders next month,’ he said in parliament.
In a warning to premiers who have refused to open up, he said international students will not be allowed to enter a state until its borders have been removed.
‘If people can’t come to your state from Sydney, then no-one is coming to your state from Singapore,’ he said.
‘If you want borders open for international students then you need to open borders for Australians.’
However, Mr Morrison was hopeful that internal borders would be gone in July and trials 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.
Mr Morrison today announced he has changed national coronavirus guidelines to allow fans to go to the footy and music lovers to attend festivals from next month.
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 replace it with a four-square-metre social distancing rule.
The national guideline cap on numbers for indoor venues will be removed in step-three. This means seated and ticketed festivals will be allowed at stadiums
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 10,000 fans to return to sports games.
Festivals where fans are seated and issued with tickets will also be allowed to resume.
Stadiums with more than 40,000 seats will be get individual guidance on how many people they are allowed, Mr Morrison said.
Funerals and churches will also be allowed an unlimited number of socially distanced people.
There would also be no cap on numbers for pubs and restaurants but Mr Morrison said nightclubs were unlikely to re-open because it would not be commercially viable for them to do so with social distancing.
Scott Morrison has changed national coronavirus guidelines to eventually allow fans back at footy and music lovers to attend festivals
Funerals and churches will also be allowed an unlimited number of socially distanced people under the new guidelines. Pictured: A service in Melbourne
This is the roadmap that the Prime Minister released last month to outline how to get back to normal
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.’
A protester at a rally in Melbourne on Saturday had tested positive for coronavirus, sparking fears of a second wave.
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
Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Australian cities in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Pictured: A protest in Sydney on Tuesday
Also in his press conference, the Prime Minister apologised for saying on Thursday that there was no slavery in Australia.
In an interview on Sydney radio 2GB, the he was asked whether statues of Captain James Cook should be removed in response to a movement in the UK to topple monuments to slave traders.
He rejected the idea and said: ‘It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia.’
Thousands of activists have pointed out that although slavery was never legal Down Under, convicts, Indigenous Australians and Pacific Islanders were all victims of forced labour.
‘My comments were not intended to give offence and if they did a deeply regret that and apologise for that,’ he said.
‘This is not about getting into history wars.’