Victoria is hoping its regions can be absorbed into a larger bubble with NSW as local businesses along the border remain constrained by tough COVID-19 restrictions.

But unfortunately for the Kotzurs their farm is on wrong side of the Murray, on the southern bank, in Victoria.
While NSW announced on Monday weddings for up to 300 people would be allowed from December 1, Victoria still has a maximum of 10, meaning the Kotzurs’ venue will effectively remain shut until next year.
“We are pretty devastated, it is hard to fathom,” Jay Kotzur said.
“Our shire has had zero cases, but we have had people cancel because they fear it is not safe for their grandparents.
“It’s frustrating. We have had every booking cancelled.”
Lake Hume on the Murray River, which divides NSW and Victoria.  David Thorpe
Regional Victoria has a population of nearly 1.5 million larger than Adelaide but has not had any local transmitted cases for weeks, with the only recent cases coming from a single truck driver from Melbourne who infected seven people in Kilmore and Shepparton.
Outside of these towns there is not an active case in regional Victoria, and the 14-day average in regional Victoria has now been stuck at below one since September 24.
On sunday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews held out hope of a regional Victoria bubble, with both NSW and South Australia suggesting the “ring of steel” that ring-fences Melbourne from the rest of the state could allow for a regional bubble with both NSW and South Australia.
“I think they will be more likely to let regional Victoria into NSW and into South Australia while there is that border between Melbourne and regional Victoria,” he said.
“We don’t want that to be on for any longer than it needs to be, but we do have still two different stories. There is much less virus in regional Victoria than metro Melbourne.”
Mr Andrews confirmed the Prime Minister Scott Morrison had agreed to extra Australian Defence Force personnel to supervise checkpoints between Melbourne and regional Victoria.
“Even though the metro Melbourne numbers are getting close to regional Victoria levels, getting the sequence of this right isn’t easy. But I would not be surprised if, quite soon, the NSW government and the South Australian government felt that they were in a position to be able to allow regional Victorians to travel more freely into their state.”
In Sydney, Premier Gladys Berejiklian was being more cautious about a complete reopening, signalling Victoria would need to demonstrate it is not going to have uncontrolled outbreaks whilst there are no restrictions.
The push to ring-fence regional Victoria from metro Melbourne to enable border reopenings came as the lifting of hospitality restrictions in Shepparton were postponed for a week.
While we announce some changes to the road map for regional Victoria yesterday, those that relate to indoor restaurants and cafes will not apply to the greater Shepparton area at this time.
That allows us to get the day 11 testing completed and have a much more accurate picture of exactly how much virus is in the Shepparton community.
These matters will be reviewed on the weekend and it would be my hope and my expectation that we can have Shepparton assume those new settings.”
The day 11 testing is now required for all contacts of infected people as an extra precaution.
Victoria recorded four new cases, with three from the same family and one from a person who previously tested positive in July and is being re-investigated. Victoria also recorded its first death in five days, a man in his 90s.
The only other state to report a COVID-19 case was NSW with four hotel quarantine cases, leaving a national tally of eight new cases.
Mr Andrews also signalled he would be speaking to the Catholic Archbishop, Peter Comensoli, who had tweeted that he was “deeply shocked at the disparity imposed on VICs faith communities …”
“While I am not criticising his grace, I have made this point that a licensed, heavy regulated environment like a cafe or restaurant or a pub is very different to what might happen indoors in a faith setting.
“While faith leaders want to get back to something approaching normal, they are also very concerned to do safe things.
“The last thing you want is an outbreak amongst people coming together to celebrate mass or Friday prayers or whatever it might be,” Mr Andrews said.