 A New Zealand will pause quarantine-free travel with Australia for at least eight weeks from Friday night as Australia battles an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta virus variant. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden on Friday suspended the travel bubble with Australia, which allows movement between the two countries without quarantine. The arrangement had already been paused for travellers to and from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. There is greater risk now from the Delta variant than there was when we opened the quarantine-free travel arrangement with Australia. It is the government's duty to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19 and we continue to believe that the strongest health response is also the strongest economic response. This approach has served us well to date. So too is our willingness to adapt. COVID has changed and so we must. It's on that basis that the Director-General of Health has recommended and Cabinet has agreed to suspend quarantine-free travel with Australia. From 11.59pm tonight Australians will no longer be able to enter New Zealand quarantine-free. This will be in place for at least the next eight weeks. At that point we will reassess our arrangements. Firstly, we do want the bubble to resume. We remain committed to it and when I spoke to Prime Minister Scott Morrison this morning I conveyed this view directly, but it must be safe. In the lead up to reviewing the suspension we need to be certain that the outbreak in New South Wales and wider Australia is contained.