A NORTH East MP believes the Victorian border with NSW should be open now.
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Tim McCurdy was commenting after acting Victorian premier Jacinta Allan on Tuesday declined to specify conditions that may need to be met to remove checkpoints on the southern side of the Murray River.
"You can't just keep saying 'we'll open when we're good and ready' and then say it's on health advice," Mr McCurdy said.
"They need to put a firm benchmark in place, but to be honest I think the border should be open."
Three new coronavirus cases were officially recorded in NSW on Tuesday, continuing a string of daily single-figure reports, although three other fresh matters were acknowledged but will not be added to the tally until Wednesday due to being outside the deadline.
Ms Allan described the latest figure as a "good set of numbers" but played down any rapid border opening.
"There is still obviously work to be done, we know with this virus that you have to allow the 14-day incubation period to come to a conclusion and then go beyond that to have the confidence that the numbers can remain at this low level, that's what we've learnt here in Victoria," Ms Allan said.
Asked what thresholds would spark the border reopening, Ms Allan was vague.
"I appreciate, particularly over the summer season, why people want greater certainty....but we just know that based on the experience we've seen this year we have to follow the health advice, we have to continue to be very careful," she said.
Ms Allan noted the virus did not let the government predict with "any level of certainty" the border could reopen in 10 or 15 days.
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She acknowledged the closure of Murray River crossings by NSW from July to November and now by Victoria had disrupted border communities for many months and they had done a "terrific job".
"We've all faced the challenges of the pandemic, they've had those additional challenges with those border closures and restrictions and we really thank them for their efforts, but we do need to continue to be patient and vigilant, so that we can hold on to these precious gains of 60 days of no local community transmission," Ms Allan said.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian stressed on Tuesday she wanted no state barriers.
"The NSW government would prefer open borders throughout Australia for the duration of the pandemic, that's always been our position and as we've demonstrated to date we do have capacity in NSW to get on top of things," she said.
When Ms Berejiklian announced on November 4 she was reopening her state's Victorian border on November 23 there were nine active cases in the Garden State.
On Tuesday there were 142 active cases in NSW with the bulk in Sydney's northern beaches region.
But Mr McCurdy does not believe that figure should be the key factor to reopening.
"I'm not a health expert, but it's not the number of cases that's important, it's whether they're on top of their contact tracing, that's a bigger issue (and) they're managed the system pretty well so far," he said.
