Peter Dutton has welcomed the approach from the Queensland and NSW Premiers to avoid a full border shutdown and lockdown as health authorities scramble to contain the Bondi cluster.

The Defence Minister said the elimination approach of some Premiers was “nonsense”.

“We need to be realistic about the virus, we need to be realistic about the way it spreads,” he told Ray Hadley.

“There will be human error, we’ve seen human error in hotel quarantine.

“It wouldn’t matter it if was a federal quarantine facility, or a hotel quarantine facility, a tent out in a paddock, if there’s human error then it doesn’t matter what part of the process you are talking about, the virus will spread.

“We just need to deal with it, respond in a sensible way, and the fact that Queensland hasn’t stopped all of NSW coming to Queensland; the fact that the the Berejiklian government hasn’t locked down the whole of NSW, which is part of what we’ve seen in Victoria, I think that’s a positive thing.”

Press PLAY below to hear his response to the latest outbreak