As the trans-Tasman bubble reopens, the New Zealand government will consider offering a lifeline home to Kiwis stranded in New South Wales by the latest COVID-19 outbreak.
On Monday morning, New Zealand allowed half of Australia to resume quarantine-free travel across the Tasman Sea.
Residents of Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT can all make their way across the ditch largely free of restrictions.
A pause to the trans-Tasman bubble remains in place for NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory as they deal with various amounts of community cases.
The return of travel to the three less populous jurisdictions will be assessed by Kiwi officials, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said mounting cases in NSW would keep the bubble shut for now.
"New South Wales looks like it's going to be in its position with the lockdown restrictions for a time," she told TVNZ.
"We'll discuss today what we'll do to support New Zealanders who have been there for quite a while now."
Since the creation of the bubble, Ms Ardern's government has warned travellers they would need to shelter in place during outbreaks.
Last month, in response to a Victorian outbreak, she allowed NZ citizens to return to Aotearoa after they had spent a fortnight isolating at home.
"If we start getting up to that 12-14 day mark ... that means people have been in a form of lockdown. It means they're safer for us. They've been isolating," she said.
From this week, New Zealand will ask travelling Australians to undertake a pre-departure test for COVID-19 within 72 hours of travel, and show proof of a negative result.
New Zealand is on a 127-day streak without community transmission of COVID-19.
With low vaccination rates - ranking 122nd in the world for doses administered per capita - it is currently highly susceptible to the fast-spreading Delta variant.
Ms Ardern's government received a slice of good news on Sunday, when a much-needed shipment of 150,000 doses of vaccine from Pfizer arrived two days ahead of schedule.
There were fears New Zealand could run out of vaccine if the shipment did not arrive on time.
"This means we'll be able to keep the rollout cranking along and we won't see any change to people's booked vaccinations," Ms Ardern told Radio NZ.
New Zealand's rollout will ramp up from the end of this month, with the goal to have every consenting adult vaccinated by the end of the year.
