Up to 63K fines and jail time - travel loophole

OK I didn't know that. Anyway, it's clear that those most desperate to leave are normally resident overseas and would like to get back to their lives. Makes sense they'd be allowed to depart.

Personally I'd seriously consider returning home to Australia in 6 months from now, if there were no restrictions on entry but I'm not doing a quarantine and I don't want to get tested either. Especially not with young children in tow. It's just asking too much and I don't have spare funds to waste on such things. I'll come back when none of this applies anymore.

Excellent point. Although in my opinion, the quarantine that has to be paid for by the user (strange that a poorer country like Thailand continues to pay for the quarantine of it's citizens returning home but rich Australia charges it's citizens) and all the restrictions on entry are relatively speaking, more of a burden than the restrictions on leaving. This is because most of the world remains largely closed. Most Asian countries and some European ones impose mandatory hotel quarantines, as does Canada. Only a couple of Eastern/Central European and Middle Eastern countries, a few Central American countries, the Maldives and a few in Africa don't, but even some of these impose certain restrictions such as needing to be tested at the port of entry or your accommodation. The restrictions change almost daily, so international travel right now is a nightmare.

That being said, if you want to leave and can meet the entry requirements of the country you're heading to, you should be allowed to depart Australia.

Therefore, my gripe continues to be with the ridiculous entry requirements into Australia, something the USA doesn't impose. An American can freely return home with just a negative PCR test and walk out of the airport to go about their business.

@TheFreFlyer...No doubt it is going to be a very long way off before Australia will abandon the mandatory 14 day quarantine. I have said this before. No state has the risk appetite to be the first to challenge their population by even considering to allow home quarantine. Which state do you think would be the first mover, and how do you think they would deal with some community infections with the possibility of some deaths? Until a state is prepared to challenge their population, vaccinated or not, Australia will remain a very difficult country to return to.

I thought quarantine was decided at the federal level? Seeing that all states have the same rules in place. There is no option of flying into say, the Northern Territory and avoiding quarantine. Therefore, if home quarantine is allowed again, I can imagine it will happen simultaneously for all states.

And they're not even willing to budge on the length of the quarantine, by reducing it down to 7 or 10 days, as some countries have done.

At the very least start with that - say you're arriving from the Pacific Rim, Laos, Vietnam, China, Singapore and Hong Kong (among others): 7 days in quarantine. Evaluate again in 3 months and consider reducing it further, perhaps down to 3-5 days.

If you're coming from Thailand, Japan, South Korea, some European countries and the USA: 10 days quarantine. Reduce it down to 5-7 days after 3-6 months, depending on the epidemiological situation.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: 14 days. Down to 10 or 11 days in 6 months from now. And so forth.

Would be a start, wouldn't it?

Later, change facility quarantine to home quarantine, starting with the "low-risk" countries but make it 7 days max.

Finally, open up without quarantine (in 2022), initially allowing "low-risk" countries to enter without quarantine at all, as is the case with New Zealand. Start with Fiji, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, and later Hong Kong, Singapore etc.

Quarantine regulations have been made at the state level. They could have been done at the federal level but if that had been the case the federal government would have had to pay the quarantine fees as it is a clause enshrined into the Biosecurity Act. Not many people are aware of this and it was a way for the federal government to weasel out of paying for it. So now it is all up to each individual states each with their own Health Orders. Bet you didn't know that? And who is going to challenge their population. If you don't do the challenge, you will never move forward. Australia's mindset is only elimination and therefore the challenge test will not happen under that condition. You watch.

I didn't. What I do know is that you have to do 14 days quarantine upon arrival in Australia no matter what. Each state has their own quota - but unlike in the USA which had only a few states imposing quarantine (now replaced with a negative PCR test or nothing at all) most travellers could enter the country without needing to quarantine, except if they arrived in the states that required it (Massachusetts, Alaska, Hawaii, New York and Vermont). Quarantines also applied to domestic arrivals, however, to the best of my knowledge all of them have since been lifted. Biden's 10 day quarantine order for all foreign arrivals (also mentioned on ET back in January) seems to have gone nowhere. It's now simply a recommended 14 day self-isolation period.

What this means is that except for isolated Alaska and Hawaii, it has always been possible to enter the USA and avoid quarantine (except reportedly for US citizens returning from parts of China such as Wuhan - that order doesn't appear to have been lifted, but I could be wrong).

In Australia - you do 14 days no matter the state, so it appears to be a federal order even if it's managed by the states. Other than NZ arrivals, everyone quarantines. I wonder why some states haven't decided to reduce their quarantine periods for international arrivals? Perhaps because the states follow the recommendations from the federal government, which is not keen on having say, Western Australia, impose a lighter quarantine period than Queensland.

@TheFreqFlyer....The current quarantine situation in Australia is only mandated at the state level through state legislation. It is not a federal order and never has been. So this is not going to change any time soon. If you don't believe me about the legislation then feel free to check it out yourself and tell me where I a wrong!

I've known that individual states and territories manage quarantine under their own terms since the beginning. Still doesn't change the fact that they are acting more or less in unison to one another. Not to mention the decision to impose mandatory quarantine was made at the federal level, with responsibility given to the states to individually manage it. This is because immigration is under federal jurisdiction.

It might be a round about way of putting it, but I don't see a situation where one state allows foreign arrivals to enter quarantine free while another requires a 14-day quarantine. If that were the case, everyone would be entering the quarantine free jurisdiction(s).

I think the reason why Australia hasn't lifted or even reduced the quarantine for incoming arrivals is this notion of needing to eliminate Covid and not allow any community spread.

The only exception to this, this year at least, is likely to be in the form of additional travel bubbles. If they come into force, we're not likely to see bubbles with more than a couple of countries by year's end.

tripleplatinum2...you say that I am selfish but your simple response does not say how you come to this deduction. Perhaps the comment is coming from that of someone with a simple mind?

how are they possibly going to stop it ? &last time I looked you can fly to NZ without restriction.