Border battles are building, pitting industry against average citizens, with an influential Australian airline chief saying yesterday that although “some people may die”, opening Australia’s international borders within a year makes long-term sense. Yet polls show almost three quarters of Australia’s population want the borders to stay closed.
Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper ran an article at the weekend headlined: Australians are safe in their Covid fortress — they just can’t leave it until 2022
Speaking at a business lunch in Brisbane yesterday, Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka voiced her opposition to the projected border reopening date of “mid-2022”, as advanced by the federal government in last week’s budget.
The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Hrdlicka saying that once a viable vaccine was in place for a big enough portion of Australia’s population, the country must reopen its borders to avoid being left behind by the rest of the world.
Many other indicators, however, suggest that most Australians are quite happy to surrender the right to travel overseas, whether it’s flying or cruising, in exchange for being kept safe from Covid. Those Australians vote – and politicians of all persuasions have noticed that state premiers who have taken a hard line on border closures have been returned with thumping
majorities. A prime example: WA’s Mark McGowan, returned to power in one of the biggest election victories in Australian history.
For politicians, the lesson is simple: keep Covid out and you will get back in.
Hrdlicka, and other travel industry chiefs, view it differently. Many feel Australia must learn to live with Covid.
“Covid will be part of the community, we will become sick with Covid and it won’t put us in hospital, and it won’t put people into dire straits because we’ll have a vaccine,” Hrdlicka said, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Some people may die, but it will be way smaller than with the flu. We’re forgetting the fact that we’ve learnt how to live with lots of viruses and challenges over the years and we’ve got to learn how to live with this.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, however, has set a border reopening target of mid-2022 – and like it or not, most people back that cautious approach. The latest Newspoll shows 73% of respondents believe Australia’s international borders should remain closed until at least the middle of next year. They support the government’s stance on borders. Morrison obviously knows he is on a winner.
MEANWHILE, Britain’s Sunday Times has asked: “Has the fortress become a jail?”
The London-based paper quoted a businesswoman, an expatriate Briton living in Australia, who runs a luxury shoe 
brand and has for 40 years divided her time between Britain and Australia. Her recent application to travel to the UK on business grounds was rejected, leading the businesswoman to compare the experience to being in a prison.
“It’s like somebody’s thrown away the key and said ‘I don’t know when we’re going to let you out’. We’re being totally brainwashed in this country to think everything overseas is terrible and everything here is wonderful. And everyone has swallowed it.”
Prominent infectious diseases expert Dale Fisher told The Australian newspaper: “There has to be a time when Australia decides it’s going to tolerate cases, some hospitalisations and some deaths. We did very well from a health perspective through the worst part of the pandemic but we don’t want the tail of this pandemic to go on for years.”
Australians “could end up watching business, life, holidays, family reunions happen in the rest of the world while they still can’t visit children overseas or have big gatherings”, Fisher said.
Australia remains possibly the only country (excluding North Korea) to forbid its citizens to leave without special government permission. The UK Sunday Times says that Aussie immigration lawyers “now spend much of their time dealing with clients wanting to leave the country, rather than wanting to get in”.
As weeks tick by and the next federal election draws steadily closer, the battle over Australia’s international borders is set to intensify.
Written by Peter Needham
.jpg){kind=tracking}
