By OLIVER BROWN

LOCAL contractors who have to travel far for their jobs have welcomed a recent amendment to the state Public Health Orders, now officially allowing regional workers to carpool in a COVIDSafe way.

The announcement came from the state government last week, with senior government spokespeople acknowledging carpooling is often essential for people who live and work in remote areas.

The exemption applies to rural and regional NSW residents who have not been in Greater Sydney in the previous 14 days.

Eligible workers will also need to have had their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or be booked in to receive it before Friday, 10 September.

However, to ensure health and safety, employers and employees must still follow certain conditions while carpooling.

These include using a vehicle arranged by the employer specifically for the transport of staff to and from work, signing in and out of the vehicle using COVID check-in, passengers wearing a face mask at all times, and where practicable, keeping windows down and circulating outside air.

According to a government spokesperson, the exemption would be helpful to a wide variety of industries, including abattoir workers, shearers and fruit pickers.

Steven Mudford, who contracts shearers to wool properties across the central-north and central-west of NSW, said he personally relies a lot on carpooling his employees.

"A lot of our travel could be up to an hour because we go to properties between Lightning Ridge and Bourke, as well as in Gilgandra, Gulargambone, Coonamble and Dubbo," Mr Mudford said.

"We've got about 70 employees and about 50 per cent wouldn't have a vehicle or driver's license, so the ones that don't have that transport to and from work could often get picked up by fellow employees.

"If we were doing that during lockdown and we were pulled over by police, they could send us home, so it's good that there's something in government writing saying it's allowed."

According to Mr Mudford, when restrictions were initially put in place, he was forced to spread out his workload and only have one or two people in each vehicle, making things much more expensive for him as an employer.

This was also happening for local earthmoving contractors Milton and Sandra Ralston.

"Around 80 per cent of our work relies on travel - if we had to go out to Carinda or Walgett, we'd have to send two work utes to fit in all the staff," Mr Ralston said.

"With the new rules, it does feel a lot safer for us and safer for them - safer for our clients too."

"I think we're going to keep to two utes but if the law was just one person per vehicle, it would have costed us double and we'd probably have to put up the cost for our clients," Mrs Raltson added.

According to Mr and Mrs Ralston, most of their current work has been close to home and for any jobs they have in Coonamble, they will ask their staff to take their own vehicles to limit close contact.

When asked for their thoughts on the conditions for the exception, Mr Ralston said he thought they were "manageable".

As for Mr Mudford, he said he had already been doing a lot of the current conditions, the only main difference being they were signing in at each workplace as opposed to in the vehicles.

"It is good news for us and will put more employees and client's minds at ease they can get a shearing team out to their property," he said.

"As long as people are obeying the rules, I think it's a good thing. At the end of the day, we're an essential service and we need to keep workers in the regions - it's hard enough to get them out here as it is."