Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he understand the frustrations which come from border closures, himself being unable to return to Sydney without being restricted from Canberra, but the decisions are not made to divide the country but to keep it safe.
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"These changes have been put in place by states for public health reasons and that's their purpose, not to divide Australia but in their decisions to keep Australians safe," he said.
"Each state and territory have had over the course of the pandemic their different approaches from time to time particularly when it comes to border."
Mr Morrison said state governments were elected by the people of their state to exercise their responsibilities and as much as the federal government would like there to be greater consistency across the country, they accept states have jurisdictional responsibility.
"Ultimately they're responsible for those things and I have to respect that," he said.
"I can understand the frustration and we are similarly in a situation, one of the reasons my family and I remain in the ACT is because I need to be in Canberra and if I was to go to Sydney at present it would mean I would not be able to return here."
Mr Morrison said the vaccine would change the parameters for everyone in terms of border closures.
"There is no simple easy way of this all being fixed, it's a global pandemic. That means there will be frustrations at times," he said.
"I think when states are making these decisions they must give thought to balancing the risk of COVID and its transmission against the disruption to people. That's what they're accountable for and that's what they need to explain to citizens in their state."
The Primer Minister said NSW had done extraordinarily well to get on top of the latest outbreak.
He said he would be taking a week's leave from the weekend of January 9 and 10.
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Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said there were 11 cases confirmed in Australia yesterday and compared to other parts of the world the country was in a very good position.
It comes as the Victorian government prepares to shut its border to NSW at 11.59pm tonight.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she doesn't think Victoria's border closure was the best use of resources.
NSW recorded three new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm Thursday.
Earlier, Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said the border bubble will remain as is "for now" but changes are possible in the future, with the cross-border commissioner completing a review into the implications for communities.
He said the report would be completed in a few days.
Victoria's Commander of COVID-19 response Jeroen Weimar said it was the government's intention to keep the driver's licence border arrangement in place.
He said a huge amount of consideration had gone into the border closure and its affect on communities.
"In terms of our border communities we're doing everything we can to minimise the negative impact on them," he said.
Mr Weimar said the feedback from border communities had been mostly positive.
He said the cross-border commissioner was reviewing the border zone to establish if it was an appropriate balance between enabling movement and managing risk.