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Australia will reopen its international border from November after a year and a half of extremely tough restrictions. These have included new arrivals being made to quarantine at hotels or dedicated facilities for 14 days, and citizens needing permission to leave the country.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said states with vaccination rates above 80% would be allowed travel freedoms and it was "time to give Australians their lives back."

Travel would not immediately be open to foreigners, but the government said it was working "towards welcoming tourists back to our shores".

The public has had mixed emotions about the closed borders, with appreciation for the low Covid numbers tempered by pain over the splitting of families. Madeleine Morris is a presenter with the broadcaster ABC.

"30% of Australia's population is born overseas, so you can only imagine how many families have been ripped apart... In my own family, my sister lives in Norway, my mother is ill, she hasn't seen my mother for two years... People have missed funerals, people have missed births, people have missed deaths."

(Photo: An Australian woman hugs arrivals from New Zealand when a 2way border was opened up last year. Credit: Getty Images)

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