Over the weekend media across Australia have been reporting that Scott Morrison has said that he believes Australia’s international border will be closed indefinitely saying it is to protect our way of life as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause havoc across the world and that he wanted to protect the social freedoms of Australians, protecting Australians from a deadly outbreak of Covid-19 from overseas, with reopening borders raising the risk of another Covid-19 outbreak.
He is also reported as claiming that Australians had come to accept local lockdowns as ‘part of living with Covid-19’ and that residents did not have ‘an appetite’ for change, warning that reopening the borders too soon would expose the country to another and the more ruthless outbreak of Covid-19, like the ones experienced in the UK and Europe, telling the Sunday Telegraph, “We sit here as an island that’s living like few countries in the world are at the moment”, and
“We have to be careful not to exchange that way of life for what everyone else has”.
With the ban on international travel without special exemptions, now some 14 months old Aussies and only citizens and permanent residents allowed to enter Australia, Morrison said he would wait until ‘clear evidence’ proved the vaccines were effective before allowing vaccinated Australians to travel overseas again, adding, “The next big step that can be taken is that Australians who are vaccinated are able to travel and return to Australia without having to hotel quarantine, and ideally we only have to engage in some sort of home quarantine of a less restrictive nature”.
A report in the Daily Mail says that although Mr. Morrison has warned he will keep the borders closed over fears of another Covid-19 outbreak, a top epidemiologist told the Sydney Morning Herald it is ‘only a matter of time’ until Australia has another one with the University of Melbourne professor James McCaw predicted cases will increase as people socialize frequently and the virus spread undetected. He added that eventually, an outbreak will be cunning enough to successfully avoid the diligent work of contract tracers, and only mass vaccination would stop it and saying, “’We will expect incursions at least once a month and more often”, and “While we mix more socially, the chance of one of those taking hold goes up very quickly”, adding, “The virus will win” and “But it won’t have a devastating impact if we are vaccinated”.
With Morrison claiming Australians had come to accept local lockdowns as ‘part of living with Covid-19’ and that residents did not have ‘an appetite’ for change’, he may not have considered Australians long-standing very strong appetite for international travel, which many Australians are desperate to undertake, with travel for many also being a prime reason for being vaccinated.
Morrison’s announcement has pounded further nails into the coffins of the outbound travel sector and inbound international tourism, leaving some operators that have been hanging on for international travel to restart, on their financial knees.
While claiming that vaccination was vitally important, Morrison did not appear to have referred to the abject failure of the Federal Government’s vaccination rollout program, with the aim to vaccinate 25 million people in Australia aged over 16 and only 2.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccine administered to date.
If Morrison had succeeded in the vaccine rollout we might be much closer to ending Australia’s ‘island prison’ reputation and providing the constitutional freedom of movement right to its citizens, with the ban now also facing a legal challenge.
Last week, in the Federal Court counsel for conservative think tank LibertyWorks, which initiated this challenge, argued Australia’s Biosecurity Act did not allow for a blanket ban on travel, with Jason Potts SC arguing the act included limitations on the government’s powers and was written with how it might “intrude or erode” on individual rights in mind.
He told the court, “In the context of the human biosecurity emergency the act still contains limits and protections on those powers,” adding, “It is clear from the statutory scheme… the legislators showed considerable concern for individual rights … even in circumstances of national emergency.”
He added, “The idea of a blanket prohibition on people leaving the country … up until this pandemic that was not a measure that had been taken”, with Mr. Potts telling the court that freedom of movement was widely considered a fundamental right.
The solicitor general Stephen Donaghue QC, representing the Commonwealth, argued LibertyWorks’ interpretation of the act was wrong, and that the threshold for enacting such strong measures was very high, telling the Court, “The [act] recognizes that right [to freedom of movement] except it’s subject to reasonable grounds like public health”.
Donaghue said widespread contact tracing, enforcement of mask-wearing, and prohibiting visitors to hospitals and aged care homes would not be allowed under their interpretation of the act, adding that preventing people from going overseas took the pressure off the hotel quarantine system, in case people caught the virus while away and then wanted to return home.
The judges reserved their decision to be delivered at a later date.
So, what do you think about the ban on international travel?
For example, do you think it is correct and appropriate, or should those vaccinated be excluded from the ban on conditions such as that they receive a series of negative PCR tests before leaving Australia and entering or returning to Australia, that they quarantine at home for the required number of days with some type of technology to track and ensure they stay at home?
Isn’t it time for us to be much cleverer in this process rather than Morrison’s sledgehammer style ban on international travel?
Please let me have your views by clicking on ‘Comments’ below.
A report by John Alwyn-Jones Special Correspondent Travel and Tourism
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