Despite the spike in COVID-19 cases in New Zealand, the Prime Minister says there's no plan at the moment to return to the red alert level.
Jacinda Ardern made her comments after meeting with Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews on the second day of her trip to Australia.
Saying gidday to an old mate.
"Happy birthday. I know a big one's coming up and it's a delight to be able to wish you that in person," Ardern said to Andrews on Tuesday.
Andrews and Ardern caught up face-to-face for the first time in three years, although virtual contact's been constant throughout the pandemic.
"Those phone calls - there were many of them - were really very, very important and I hope they were of some benefit to you," Andrews said.
The pair's COVID-19 responses were like-for-like. But now New Zealand's case numbers are outnumbering the Aussie state. On Tuesday, Victoria recorded just under 9000, while New Zealand inches ever closer to 10,000.
But it's still not enough to trigger a shift to the red traffic light level.
"The question here is would gathering limits right now make a marked difference to the case rates we have. There's a real question mark over that," Ardern said.
Post-COVID economic recovery's front of mind on this trip, with a 31-strong business delegation hoping to bite further into the Australian market, our second-largest trading partner.
The trade elephant in the room as always though is China. There were attempts to stop it from detracting from the trip's trans-Tasman trade focus at an ANZ breakfast event.
Meanwhile the bank's chief executive came out swinging, calling for easier and flexible immigration to get New Zealand back on its feet.
"You can't blame Kiwis for wanting to go overseas," said Antonia Watson. "That was a big part of what I did when I was young and if they are going to go overseas then we need to replace that labour."
The Prime Minister though thinks our policies are hitting the mark.
"We have worked very hard to identify the skills gap that New Zealanders have, the issues businesses are facing and actually to ease the path for those businesses to bring in those skills that we need."
They're skills we're competing for though against our trans-Tasman pal.
