It’s next to impossible to actually get into the country at this point in any case. The whole of Australia is only allowing in 1500 people per week into hotel quarantine - a drop from over 3000 heavily lobbied for by the QLD premier who went to the olympics and then thought that she deserved one of the 214 places per day for the whole country more than one of the tens of thousands of Australians who are desperate to get home at the moment.
Meanwhile as mentioned in other comments we are letting in celebrities and sports players - we hosted the bloody tennis early this year and recently in Melbourne there were multiple large sporting events with international teams - why the hell are the government allowing these players to take valuable spots? Not to mention we come out of a serious lockdown and then they immediately allow 20-80 THOUSAND people to go to the stadiums… where there were several covid transmissions.
Screw this countries leadership. I’m in a long distance relationship with someone overseas and there is zero consideration for the severe mental health impacts that this has had on myself and my partner, and zero response to the thousands of other people in a situation similar to mine, or that of people with sick relatives, be it if they need to leave Australia to visit or non Australians arriving into the country.
Just one reason why I hate this country and it’s absolutely moronic conservative government filled with literal rapists, Hillsong religious nut jobs, homophobes, bigots, and people who funnel our wealth directly into the pockets of billionaires.
How does Australia improve its quarantine situation by preventing people from leaving? Halting the flow of incoming visitors temporarily makes a certain amount of sense, but a departing person lessens demand for local resources.
this is a first, prior to this I have only heard of such exit controls in the USSR and similar totalitarian regimes.
A charitable interpretation is that this law is aimed at Australian residents traveling to other countries for pleasure or non-essential business, contracting covid, flying back home to Australia, and spreading it to others. Over the past year, Australia's covid rates have been far lower than other countries, hence why international transmission is a far greater risk.
One alternative is preventing citizens who've traveled to other countries from returning home to Australia. Presumably this isn't legally/politically feasible because it violates a citizen's right to return home. Hence the government's decision to restrict people's ability to leave instead.
I would hope tat getting an exemption is as simple and easy as "here's my lease and paystub in {COUNTRY}", but it remains to be seen how smooth and painless the process is.
But again, you could just say that anyone arriving, citizen or not, has to go through testing and/or quarantine. Saying people need permission to leave because they might come back is pointless indirection.
It's not pointless - the point is to reduce the number of people who come into Australia. Quarantine is not perfect; fewer arrivals means fewer sources of infection.
> A charitable interpretation is that this law is aimed at Australian residents traveling to other countries for pleasure or non-essential business, contracting covid, flying back home to Australia, and spreading it to others.
That was already restricted. This change targets citizens living abroad and prevents them from going back home. Who could leave by demonstrating that they are residents of an other country.
> Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said the change was introduced out of consistency. “This does not stop Australians ordinarily resident outside Australia from departing. However, these people will now need to apply for an exemption,” she said.
My reading of the above was that citizens living abroad would still be allowed to leave Australia and return to their home. They just need to go through a centralized exemption process in order to demonstrate that they are residing abroad
The article states that they already had to prove they were exempt. However as I have not personally gone through this I am not in a position to comment on the accuracy of this statement. But from what I know of Australian bureaucracy, likely it was an ad-hoc decision made by a representative in the airport checking whatever documentation was provided. But now, you need to apply to the federal Home Affairs ministry for an official exemption, which comes with as much delay and red tape as you can imagine. So what I'm saying is; whilst one is ostensibly still "allowed" to leave if one meets the requirements, in practice it may now be more difficult if not impossible. But the fact still remains that this is frankly an obscene policy. I'm disappointed, and angry, but not surprised. Let's also not forget that the previous Home Affairs minister himself went abroad last year, contracted covid, came back and had meetings with others.
Just a continuation of Australia's slow decline into authoritarianism and irrelevance. I wonder if they'll read these comments of mine and revoke my citizenship for sedition
Wow. In the last week we have seen the Prime Minister call in the Australia Defense Forces to enforce lockdown in Sydney[1]. We have seen the Police guarding apartment blocks to prevent residents from leaving[2] and now there's a ban on foreign residents leaving the country? As if these things weren't jarring enough, Hollywood celebrities seem to have been given great leeway in being able to to come and go as they please.[3]
WTF happened to Australia? I was under the impression it was a "take no shit" kind of place. It seems like they've become some sort of clown world police state. The Government response is completely over the top considering the situation.
Is it because socialized medicine can't cope with a surge in illness (Canada was another example) exposing the poor state of socialized healthcare after spending 10's of billions a year in tax payer funds. Somehow the USA with it's private system was able to scale and accommodate massive amounts of patients without collapse while these other countries were invoking the worlds longest lock downs and basically shutting down everything to try and save a healthcare system that barely functions under normal conditions (Canada as an example, visit any Toronto Hospital).
> Is it because socialized medicine can't cope with a surge in illness (Canada was another example) exposing the poor state of socialized healthcare after spending 10's of billions a year in tax payer funds. Somehow the USA with it's private system was able to scale and accommodate massive amounts of patients without collapse while these other countries were invoking the worlds longest lock downs and basically shutting down everything to try and save a healthcare system that barely functions under normal conditions (Canada as an example, visit any Toronto Hospital).
I don't think the data supports the idea that the US healthcare system handled the pandemic better than socialized healthcare systems.
Hmm... US covid deaths per 1M population, 1864.51. Canada covid deaths per 1M population, 707.17. Not a favourable metric for the States. Parts of the US seem to be coping with covid by ignoring it, which fortunately is limited to Alberta so far here.
I've lived in both countries... The health systems work in both of them, although you have to have good insurance in the States to be able to say that.
To be fair here, Canada has applied certain strict and in some senses possibly absurd measures at COVID control but nothing like the half baked police state nonsense that Australia is applying both internally and along its borders.
As for the U.S. Overall, despite how many others here comment based more on kneejerk emotional dislike of the U.S. government than substantive argument, i'd agree with what you mention: the U.S did scale surprisingly well considering its enormous population, numerous autonomous internal jurisdictions (the states) and diverse social dynamics. Of course it has many deaths, but for a country of 330 million people that is to be expected.
In terms of death ratio compared to many other countries, the U.S hasn't been among the very worst, and has managed to avoid disasters of both the economic and clinical saturation kind (whether by luck or administrative aptitude, or a mix of both across different states) decently enough. That it managed to not do worse than almost 3 dozen other countries without resorting to the kind of draconian bullshit that Australia's government is trying to normalize is a point in favor of the United States
What? As a resident I think they aren't doing enough. The reason we haven't had much of a problem is because we've been strict. The problems we are having in NSW that I am currently living through now are because they didn't lockdown fast enough and hard enough to deal with the delta strain.
Socialized healthcare isn't the problem. We aren't trying to save the healthcare system we are trying to save lives and stop people getting a disease which often has permanent effects if they do survive it.
Now aside from our COVID response we've become a clown world police state I'll give you that. Our laws about being able to press software engineers into becoming spies for example, or our stance on encryption, or the way the NSW police keep strip searching everyone all the fucking time.
But to suggest we are doing too much to prevent the spread of COVID seems fucking insane to me
It's all about control. Sadly people I still talk to down there think it's for their own good. I'm ranting but the government is extremely corrupt and just obviously incompetent. And that's not even related to the literal rapes and sexual abuse that has occurred in the actual parliament building (by government employees, who mysteriously are never prosecuted). The current acting leader of the house "allegedly" anally raped a 17 year old and has had no repercussions this far
> WTF happened to Australia? I was under the impression it was a "take no shit" kind of place. It seems like they've become some sort of clown world police state. The Government response is completely over the top considering the situation.
It’s because scotty from marketing is very literally worse than useless, wants to appear strong, and visibly brutalising minorities makes the lib and nat electorate very happy.
We've kept our numbers low because of the "over the top" reactions you're talking about. You'd be correct that our case fatality rate is higher, but that's not due to the hospitals struggling, it's because out numbers are so low that an outbreak in a few aged care homes seriously skews the data.
Also, US deaths per 100k: 187.3, AU deaths per 100k: 3.6
They are going for the zero COVID strategy. Not that I condone it, but the whole idea is to keep their numbers as they are in your link.
> Somehow the USA with it's private system was able to scale and accommodate massive amounts of patients without collapse while these other countries were invoking the worlds longest lock downs and basically shutting down everything to try and save a healthcare system that barely functions under normal conditions (Canada as an example, visit any Toronto Hospital).
I am not aware of any collapse faced by the public healthcare system in my country (Austria).
They’re stopping australian citizen living in other countries from leaving.
How’s stopping Jack and Sheila from going back home in not australia doing anything for covid in australia? Unlike scotty they’re not leaving for two weeks on the seaside or ”stopping off” at the pub on a business trip, they’re going back to their job and obligations.
It’s also completely untrue, the federal governmemt has bungled everything so far.
> How’s stopping Jack and Sheila from going back home in not australia doing anything for covid in australia?
I don't know the exact intentions of the Australian government, but the rationale as outlined in the article is that it stops the "go abroad - catch COVID - come back" cycle at the first link.
> the rationale as outlined in the article is that it stops the "go abroad - catch COVID - come back" cycle at the first link.
These are not people going on holidays, they're not going to do that, which is why the rule did not apply to them.
The article explains that these people had to justify their being residents of other countries to leave without a special authorisation. If you want to "0 COVID" you prevent them from coming back in as you do for non-australian residents, and you prevent australian residents from leaving without authorisation.
I'm an Australian citizen who has lived in the US for fifteen years.
This law (and others) say that if I want to travel to see my elderly parents in Australia I have to:
1. be fully vaccinated (I am, have been since December) - not too unreasonable
2. quarantine upon my arrival for two weeks (inconvenient, but not unreasonable - unless they are on their deathbed, gravely ill, etc.)
and adds this:
3. am prevented from leaving Australia unless I "prove" that I have permanent residence elsewhere (which makes little sense because as an Australian citizen, whether I do or don't, I'm still entitled, subject to points 1 and 2 above, to return at any time - for the same reason that Australia won't release my superannuation (401k-ish kinda thing) regardless of my residence elsewhere, "because as a citizen, I am entitled to return at any time, so that money needs to stay until the appropriate time").)
Note that they talk about "obtaining exemptions", but there are multiple examples, including one in this article, where the government has stated "charter a plane for your trip, do not fly commercial" in order to obtain the exemption. Which makes one rule for the rich (and you have to be rich to charter a plane in general - even more so when most countries, with the exception of New Zealand, are at least an eight hour jet flight away, so this is not so much "charter a Cessna" as "charter a G450 or Global 6000" - hint, those aircraft are in the _five digit per flight hour_ charter range - Melbourne to LAX is probably a $100,000 flight, at best.
I recall Canadians having to wait weeks to maybe book an appointment to get one of the vaccine variant (they wouldn't tell you which one until you showed up in person) while in the US walk-in vaccine appointments were available... at Walmart!
How can they justify the 50+% tax rate to pay for "free" healthcare?
US can "print" world reserve currency at will and borrow from itself without restriction.
It isn't surprising that vaccines are so readily available in the US, at the cost of few 10s of billion, that US can just will into existence at any time, they save their entire economy 100s of billions in lost sales.
This is why vaccines are free but healthcare is not - healthcare in the US generates 100s of billions per year and keeps people in workforce on both sides - as employees of insurance companies and as employees of other companies that otherwise couldn't afford insurance.
Other countries have to actually earn their money to pay for things.
I was glad for Australia’s straightforward “lock down to zero until we can do something better” strategy but since then several “better”s have arrived and the Morrison government has been unable to accomplish anything. In fact the whole lockdown regime appears to have been a lucky first guess, as no sensible action has subsequently been taken.
And locking your own citizens out has never been legitimately defensible. But Australia has long taken a “fuck you” attitude to her ex pats, unlike other countries who court them as valuable members of the country.
Indeed, I think Australia got lockdown right to start.
However there were incoherencies in the lockdown (wealthy foreigners and Hollywood stars can come and go; few Australians can get home). The vaccine rollout has been a shitshow; I'm in the US, another nest of incompetence, and got my second shot in April while some of my friends back home (yep, in Melb) just got their first. And the financial support for people who are really suffering has been nothing compared to the States -- so much for helping the Aussie battler. No intelligent followthrough.
And let's not get started on Scotty jetting off to Cornwall uninvited for a seaside trip while everyone else is bottled up at home.
Meanwhile as mentioned in other comments we are letting in celebrities and sports players - we hosted the bloody tennis early this year and recently in Melbourne there were multiple large sporting events with international teams - why the hell are the government allowing these players to take valuable spots? Not to mention we come out of a serious lockdown and then they immediately allow 20-80 THOUSAND people to go to the stadiums… where there were several covid transmissions.
Screw this countries leadership. I’m in a long distance relationship with someone overseas and there is zero consideration for the severe mental health impacts that this has had on myself and my partner, and zero response to the thousands of other people in a situation similar to mine, or that of people with sick relatives, be it if they need to leave Australia to visit or non Australians arriving into the country. Just one reason why I hate this country and it’s absolutely moronic conservative government filled with literal rapists, Hillsong religious nut jobs, homophobes, bigots, and people who funnel our wealth directly into the pockets of billionaires.