Australians working overseas

There must be many others in my situation, i.e. a once very busy consultant who is not permitted to leave Australia. I am still getting many requests for my services in various parts of the world, but currently have to reply that my government will not allow me to leave Australia. Does anyone know the secret to being considered to be providing part of a critical industry or business. If Tony Abbot can be considered critical, there must be something I am missing?

Australia is the worlds biggest island and behaves like it. When the politicians (and the public) realise that the current C19 response is not sensible or sustainable then the outlook will improve, but not until then. Lucky country for sure.

It's insane.

Not just people in your situation, but Australians overseas who now want to go back to Australia and who have to pay $3000 and go into hotel quarantine for 14 days.

Australians who left Australia to care for sick and dying relatives. Australians who went overseas to volunteer in war torn countries etc.

Overseas Australians who need to travel back to Australia to care for sick or dying relatives.

I think every citizen should be allowed at least 1 free entry, cant revoke that for some people while others paid nothing

You've got no chance. I've been knocked back for business critical travel twice. You have to be:

(a) a sportsperson (the Cricketers were allowed to go to the UK for a T20 series);

(b) someone who owns a media company (Kerry Stokes seems as taken several trips on his jet without having to do hotel quarantine);

(c) a movie star (Nicole Kidman didn't have to do hotel quarantine and instead got to live it up at her house in the Southern Highlands); or

(d) a politician (the Defence and Foreign Affairs Ministers went to the US for a meeting that could have been done by zoom and also didn't have to do quarantine).

We're not in this together.

I personally feel the Liberal Federal Government sees Aussies working and or living overseas as non-citizens, they are working for a foreign company and pay tax there, so they are not contributing to the Australian economy tax-wise so they have little interest in bringing you home with affordable flights.

There is also the issue of whether the government where you are will allow the Australian government to send aircraft to repatriate you back home. I'm sure Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas would be happy to use some of his grounded fleet to bring you home with Australia government assistance and approval.

I guess the risk is you could catch Covid-19 on the flight home needs to be weighed up too, I don't know if you need to sign a waiver that should you catch COVID-19 you cannot sue the Australian government or the airline?

We need to send flights to Australian Airports that accept International flights, not just Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. But Darwin and the ACT as well and once you quartine for the mandatory 14 days you can get a flight back home to where you live in OZ. Maybe cap the passenger levels on international flights at 70 percent or more of what the aircraft can carry so we bring more Aussie's home in one go instead of just 30 at a time which I believe the number is currently, I could be wrong.

I wish there was a faster way to bring you all back home, for those of you who wish to return. You can take the Aussie out of the country but no the country out of the Aussie.

Stay safe Aussie's and hang in there.

In the same situation as PFM, can anyone advise "why" we cannot actually leave Australia?

I do understand the issues surrounding inbound passengers and all the measures and so forth that are in place, but why must one ask for permission to leave?

I'm sure there's a perfectly sane and logical reason but at the moment I'm unable to find it.

As a dual citizen of Australia as well as GB [by birth] I'm not getting it. I'm left to assume the reason. Airport staff and risk of infection? Airline crew and risk of infection? Social distancing requirements on outbound flights?

In addition to this and I'm sure you learned people know this; the decision by the Department of Home Affairs to actively prevent outbound travel is in violation of Australia's human rights obligations - ICCPR, article 12 (3) which provides that 'everyone shall be free to leave any country, including their own'.

Lastly, on LHR's own website: "Self-isolation - Air Corridors with certain countries mean you are no longer obliged to self-isolate when you arrive in the UK." Australia is on that certain countries list so no quarantine requirement.

Thank you!

Yes i would love to hear any ideas or thoughts as well. I had to hightail it back to Australia in late March from Bali where i was working for short term 2 weeks and then i was scheduled to return to my base in India, but during this 2 weeks, they closed their doors to everyone unless an Indian passport holder, so Australia was my only return option. Prior to this i had spent the majority of the past few years overseas, so therefore initially eliminating my need for needing to get a permit approval to leave (if spent more than 180 abroad in past 12 or 24 months, the exemption was automatic i beleive) but now being locked in Australia since March - trying to do what Australia has asked by not travelling - i will most likely have passed this 180 day grace period.

Any thoughts or advice would also be hugely appreciated like those above.

It is an absolute disgrace and a joke that the whole world has been shut down due to a'flu'! I have businesses back operating overseas and cannot get back to them and then consultancy and short programs waiting to be run in other locations but i cannot do either of them but am locked in a country where there are maniacs running the states killing us and our Australian small businesses. Our QLD Premier - seriously you are a disgrace!! Argghh frustration levels are peaking due to "leadership" incompetence who are playing polictical stunts and games for their own gains, so matter the heartache and distress the real people have to endure by their decisions. Plus having to abide by rules set by people who have never worked in the real world is killing us.

Hopefully there is a major change in the whole political set up and federal constitution to forever in the future reduce the state powers and their ability to override the national government

The number of jokes I've had over the last six months from family, clients and friends overseas about Australia showing its true "Prison Island" colours says it all.

Ordinary Australians in the country are told to hunker down and shut up; you're not allowed to leave. Australians overseas are dismissed and ignored as forgotten collateral; good luck getting home. International workers in Australia, even those who've been here for years paying well into the 45% bracket are trapped in limbo; you can leave but you can't come back.

I'm a dual citizen yet am not allowed to visit my own ageing parents in Canada with a Canadian passport without "permission" from Australia, which isn't granted anymore even if they've died. By contrast, Canada would happily let me in and back out and even trust me to self-isolate at home; imagine what it must be like to be treated like an adult!

[Before the "well some people ruined that for us in Oz" choir pipes up, there have been plenty of naughty Canadians too who've done as they pleased anyway, yet Canada like most rational countries understands that total compliance isn't possible nor is total indefinite shutdown; instead, they trust the vast majority to do the right thing and then mitigate rather than try remove the remaining risk as we do here. With all due respect, if Stalin couldn't achieve total control, neither will Dan Andrews or Scott Morrison no matter how many lectures, fines, bribes, or scary TV ads they commission.]

We are not in this together. Those who make the rules have of course exempted themselves from them. Meanwhile, government at all levels continue to escalate their stubborn commitment to impossibly unsustainable strategies. Risk, like this virus, will never be "eliminated," even with a vaccine, but around and around we go anyway. Until then, we continue to squander valuable time we could be spending to plan how we might actually coexist with this virus and restart our economies and movement of people should the magical vaccines we've already poured billions into to secure our place in the queue don't actually yield anything. Right?

"Yeah, nah." - Gov.

Colonial, parochial, nanny state island......

I live underneath the final approach to Essendon airport and most days pass close to the runways at Melbourne airport. Melbourne airport is dead of air traffic while Essendon is much busier than normal. With the city of Melbourne in lockdown where are all the passengers in the small computer aircraft and business jets going? They cannot be staying within the 5 km limit or the ring of steel around Melbourne. We are not all in this together.

I have a friend who has been transferred from Melbourne to Toronto by his employer, a global accounting firm.

He applied for and received a permit for him and his family and they are leaving Melbourne on 3rd October

Yes, the entire process took a few months but it is most definitely possible.

Additional information regarding my previous post.

Upon arrival in Canada my friend has been informed that the entire family will need to quarantine in a hotel for fourteen days at their own expense.

How come George Pell can get permission to leave. Sources at the Vatican are reported as saying he does not have a position there any more.

Best way to leave is if you have family overseas dual citizenship is definitely a bonus i was granted permission on that reason and so have alot of my friends , other then compassion grounds you have a low chance Of traveling, i think the early super release was intended for AustralianS to spend in ausTralia , Last thing the government wants is people spending there 20k abroad