# Australians trying to return home from India face up to $66,000 fine or five years’ jail



## mellowyellow (Apr 30, 2021)

_
The Australian government will introduce penalties including fines and jail time for anyone who tries to return home from India, with treasurer Josh Frydenberg defending the moves as “drastic” but needed.

The move comes after two Australian cricketers who had been in India returned home on Thursday after transiting through Qatar, despite the government earlier in the week banning all direct flights from Covid-ravaged India.

The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, announced the strengthening of border controls late on Friday night, saying that anyone who attempted to defy the rules would be hit with fines of up to $66,600 or five years in prison, or both..............._

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...tizens-to-return-from-covid-ravaged-countries


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## MrPants (Apr 30, 2021)

The Aussies & New Zealand have been hard core in not only rules & penalties but enforcement as well and guess what? They have virtually no Covid 19 issues compared to the rest of us


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 30, 2021)

MrPants said:


> The Aussies & New Zealand have been hard core in not only rules & penalties but enforcement as well and guess what? They have virtually no Covid 19 issues compared to the rest of us


I have been supportive of much stricter measures from the start in our country.

So disappointing they never came.


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## Jules (Apr 30, 2021)

MrPants said:


> The Aussies & New Zealand have been hard core in not only rules & penalties but enforcement as well and guess what? They have virtually no Covid 19 issues compared to the rest of us





Aunt Marg said:


> I have been supportive of much stricter measures from the start in our country.
> 
> So disappointing they never came.


Totally agree with both of you and the Australian government.


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## MrPants (Apr 30, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> I have been supportive of much stricter measures from the start in our country.
> 
> So disappointing they never came.


And the enforcement of what there is too is lacking. Very sad


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## asp3 (Apr 30, 2021)

MrPants said:


> And the enforcement of what there is too is lacking. Very sad



For me the real disappointment is not so much the lack of enforcement as the lack of cooperation and self sacrifice from some members of the general public so that others could simply survive and to help all of us get back to somewhat closer to normal sooner.  However my wrath is reserved for those who did everything in their power to encourage people not to cooperate because they didn't want people to "be controlled by the government" or to "act like sheep."


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## mellowyellow (Apr 30, 2021)

Those two Aussie cricketers who sneaked in by the back door thought they were very smart, but when the media got hold of it, the government moved quickly to close the loophole and imposed those harsh penalties.  The USA is such a huge country with a population to match, it may have been impossible for states to shut down those coming home from overseas, we are a small country by comparison, just over 25 million.


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 30, 2021)

Jules said:


> Totally agree with both of you and the Australian government.





MrPants said:


> And the enforcement of what there is too is lacking. Very sad


Our BC border should have been closed to all other provinces from the very start.


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## Warrigal (Apr 30, 2021)

Border control is easier when you are an island at the a*se end of the world.


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## StarSong (May 1, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> Our BC border should have been closed to all other provinces from the very start.


I don't profess to know what BC borders look like, but can say that it would be nearly impossible to physically close off US state borders from one another (Hawaii and Alaska being notable exceptions).  The legality of it would be even more difficult. 

I'm the child of parents born in the early 1920s whose lives - and the lives of much of the world - were massively interrupted, inconvenienced, negatively financially affected, forever changed, and horrifically saddened by WWII. They mustered through without endlessly bitching or moaning. I never heard a single tale of Americans - or American states - suing the federal government because it was their, by God, right to have all the butter, meat, coffee, gasoline and tires they wanted instead of dealing with rationing. 

They didn't rip out their victory gardens and stop buying war bonds when some costly SNAFUs occurred due to the fog of war or when battle strategies and targets shifted as data became available. 

That's what disturbs me the most.  
Wahh... I have to wear a mask in public 
Wahh... I have to stand six feet apart from others 
Wahh... I can't travel
Wahh... First scientists said to do this and now they're saying to do that - how dare they not have known EVERYTHING from the moment the virus was noticed?

God help us if we were called to make REAL sacrifices. One can only imagine the avalanche of lawsuits.


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## Sunny (May 1, 2021)

StarSong, amen!


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## Aunt Marg (May 1, 2021)

Was listening to a news report this morning that mentioned some 9,000 Australians are currently in India.


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## Warrigal (May 1, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> Was listening to a news report this morning that mentioned some 9,000 Australians are currently in India.


Most, but not, all are people with dual Australian/Indian nationality.
The rest are Aussie cricketers playing in the NPL.

The government is copping a lot of flack over this because they promised to get all Australians wanting to come home that they would be by last Christmas and because they have been slow getting vaccinations under way. Not sure that they are totally responsible for the vaccines but they were not making repatriation a high priority last year.


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## StarSong (May 1, 2021)

Warrigal said:


> Most, but not, all are people with dual Australian/Indian nationality.
> The rest are Aussie cricketers playing in the NPL.
> 
> The government is copping a lot of flack over this because they promised to get all Australians wanting to come home that they would be by last Christmas and because they have been slow getting vaccinations under way. Not sure that they are totally responsible for the vaccines but they were not making repatriation a high priority last year.


What happened with the repatriation?  Do you know why that didn't go according to plan?


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## Warrigal (May 2, 2021)

The federal government dragged its feet. It seems that they cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. Australia, like the US, is a federation of states and the constitution spells out the responsibilities of the federal government. Anything not mentioned remains the responsibility of the states. Quarantine, border control and international trade are listed in the constitution as federal responsibilities.

Flights to and from Australia were severely curtailed and it was very hard to book a seat on a plane to Australia. Even when a booking was made the flight was often cancelled. The states were carrying the load of managing the virus and we had no vaccine at first. We relied on hygiene, social isolation and distancing, and masks to control infections. Even so there were a lot of deaths in aged care homes and other places, although nothing like the scale seen elsewhere in the world. Our total death toll is around one thousand for the whole population.

Some state premiers closed our internal borders, leaving the more populous states to deal with local clusters and hot spots and set up quarantine in city hotels. On the whole the premiers did a really good job and have been supported by the public. Even so, they were pilloried in some news outlets.

Of the Australians wanting to come home, most were in the UK and they were given priority. Even so, they were coming home in dribs and drabs. The federal government was focussed on the economy and spent a few squillions on keeping businesses afloat and people in jobs. Ex-pat Australians were rather low priority.  India was a long way down the priority list. Basically the government dropped the ball. There was a bit of a lull in the pandemic last year that was a missed opportunity. QANTAS planes were sitting idle. The government could have commissioned some to fly people home but the trouble was that the quarantine system was under stress, so it wasn't done.

People are now demanding that the feds set up more and better quarantine facilities but they are not keen to resume this responsibility.


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## Warrigal (May 2, 2021)

The elephant in the room is racism. This is being called out by members of the public, not politicians of most parties. This photo and comment on Twitter condemns us all in not so subtle terms. The men in the photo are Australian citizens and members of the Sikh community.







> This is Indian Australians helping our their fellow Aussies during the catastrophic bushfires. Remember them? They fed thousands across 3 states. When we faced a crisis, they donated and helped. When they are faced with a crisis we threaten to fine their families returning to Aus


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## StarSong (May 2, 2021)

Thank you for explaining, @Warrigal.  It seems the virus has sharpened ugly political issues everywhere.


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