NSW Tourism Minister Stuart Ayres has acknowledged the “distress” today’s regional travel postponement has caused, but denies the government lied or attempted to ‘smother’ the announcement.

Mr Ayres told Jim Wilson the decision was made to prevent “upwards of a million” unvaccinated Sydneysiders travelling to the regions where vaccine uptake is strong but “patchy”.

“This is definitely not the government lying.

“I will freely accept … we have moved the goalposts, there’s no doubt about that.

“We should not put regional NSW at an unnecessary level of risk at this final hurdle.

“It would be so devastatingly bad if we allowed people in Sydney to travel to a region, and the virus got into one of those communities with relatively low vaccination rates, and then we had to start locking down regional LGAs.”

Press PLAY below to hear the Tourism Minister’s response in full