Permits for Victoria-NSW border residents

Premier Daniel Andrews says residents of the cross-border community local government areas will need to obtain a permit to state-hop from 6pm on Friday.

He said the permit system would track who was entering Victoria from NSW, make it easier to rapidly get information to contact tracers and to monitor compliance.

"It is not good enough to limit movement. We need to know who is moving," Mr Andrews told reporters on Wednesday.

"If this virus can get from Sydney to Byron Bay, to Armidale, then only a fool would think it couldn't get to Albury. It absolutely can. We need to go beyond a bubble. We need to have permits."

Mr Andrews says if the virus gets into the southern NSW communities, there is "every chance" it will spread into Victoria.

Victoria recorded 20 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, all of which were located in metropolitan Melbourne, while NSW recorded 344 cases and announced a week-long lockdown for Dubbo, almost 400 kilometres northwest of Sydney.

Several other NSW regional areas are already in lockdown, including the Hunter, the Northern Rivers, which takes in Byron Bay, Tamworth and Armidale

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he wanted border communities to be able to "go about their business safely".

The permit system will apply for the next 14 days and replace the licence checks currently in place.

Residents of the border towns can travel between states for six reasons including medical care, compassionate purposes, work, education, playing sport or getting vaccinated.

The opposition has described the move as an unnecessary, bureaucratic impost.

"Families, business owners and community leaders the length of the border are at our wit's end with restrictive and nonsensical border rules that have sliced our communities in two and paralysed local economies," Nationals Leader Peter Walsh said in a statement.

"Today's decision to again enforce border permits - even for essential travel - sends us back to the dark days of waiting hours each day just to cross the river for daily needs like medical appointments, work, school, community sport and to do the shopping."

Australian Associated Press