The ACT government is planning a series of urgent weekend meetings to clarify the travel arrangements for Canberrans in a rapidly changing situation.
New South Wales announced changed rules for travel on Thursday night. On Friday morning, it was clear that ACT rules and those across the border were confusing and out of line with each other.
By Friday evening, weekend meetings of ministers and health officials were being arranged, with a view to extending the "bubble" area to which Canberrans can travel without needing to go into quarantine on return.
Batemans Bay and the south coast were high on the agenda.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said, "We are leaning towards allowing more areas not to have quarantine requirements."
There were two big areas of anomaly between the ACT and NSW:
ACT residents have less freedom to travel than people who live just over the border in NSW.
Under ACT rules, Canberrans are restricted to neighbouring parts of NSW, and only for essential reasons, while fully-vaccinated people in NSW could travel throughout the state except for Sydney. They could travel for leisure.
Mr Barr accepted that the ACT rules were becoming unenforceable.
He said he was relying on trust that Canberrans who went, say, to Queanbeyan for an essential reason didn't then pop into Kmart for a general shop or to a pub or café.
But his advice remained unchanged: "If you don't need to travel, don't travel. If you don't need to cross the border, don't cross the border. If you don't need to be in a room full of lots of people, don't be in a room full of lots of people."
The second big NSW change that impacts on the ACT was the decision by the NSW government to allow double-vaccinated travellers who test negative on arrival in Sydney to enter the country without quarantine.
They would be free to travel on to the ACT - but the ACT rule is that they must quarantine for 14 days.
Mr Barr said the ACT government would work out with the NSW government how passengers could transit to Canberra.
After he talked to the media on Friday, it was clear that the public was confused.
In the Canberra Centre, Michelle Cosier said she had family in country Victoria and she hadn't seen them for two years. She studies the regulations but said they were "a bit confusing".
Hairdresser Nuresh Nagarjan said: "It's so complicated. They change all the time."
Randall Wilson who was waiting to have his hair cut in the Canberra Centre said: "I do think we need a confirmation from the government about where we can go."
Shopper Cathy Wright, pushing a heavy trolley of goods, said she wasn't clear on the regulations but praised Mr Barr as "outstanding" and "lucid".
The disarray should clarify over the weekend.
November 1 is looking like the day when the ACT and NSW transition into a new "COVID normal".
But clearly Mr Barr was being ultra-cautious saying he and his government were assessing the situation.
It is still not clear whether travel to the south coast (if the border bubble is extended that far) could be for a holiday or need to be for an essential reason.
"We still have a virus circulating and 90,000 plus who are not vaccinated fully," he said.
