Fines up to $66k or five years prison for Australians returning home from India

Fines up to $66k or five years prison for Australians returning home from India(theguardian.com)

45 points by merusame 5 years ago | 33 comments

0xfaded 5 years ago |

I'm an Australian living abroad, and from my perspective this is consistent with the government's messaging from the beginning: "come home now or be prepared to stay were you are for an extended period of time." Unfortunate as it is, Australians were told to make a decision early last year. It's ultimately unfair to other Australians who have made sacrifices to keep Australia effectively Covid free if others who decided to stay abroad all rush home whenever things get bad in their necks of the woods.

Closi 5 years ago | |

Eh, I'm not entirely sure it's consistent with the spirit of citizenship though, even if it's consistent with the governments messaging.

What happens if peoples visas expire? What happens if people lose their job abroad? What happens if people's home life in Australia changes, and they have to go back to care for an elderly or ill relative? Or if your father dies and someone needs to care for your mum? "Tough shit, you chose to live abroad so stay out" is one way to handle this, but in reality there should probably be more nuance.

Even if you decided to stay abroad because you don't want to quit your job, but then the country you were working in starts to have oxygen shortages and their medical system starts failing during a global pandemic, I think this also counts as a situation where a country should be helping it's citizens rather than saying "Well sorry, you knew the risk, we offered you the option to quit your job and come back home and be unemployed, but you chose to stay there. I mean we could set up a quarantine facility but if you come back we will send you to jail instead".

They should offer some sort of pathway for getting back, even if it means sitting for 2 weeks in a government quarantine facility and having to pay for the priviledge.

0xfaded 5 years ago | | |

I see your points, especially with the conflict if citizenship. There will be an obligation on the government to come up with a solution, but that requires at least a small period of time for planning. I could see an island quarantine facility being established.

fpig 5 years ago | | |

How is this even an issue? I just can’t imagine many Australians going to India to work since it’s a much poorer country. Like, it’s hard for me to believe there’s more than 100 Australians who did that. And they can easily quarantine that many people. The article makes it sound like it’s a huge number of people they’d need to build facilities for which seems super strange.

ArkanExplorer 5 years ago | | |

Australia awards citizenship extremely generously. You only need to be living in the country for four years (which can be as an international student), there is no income test, no employment test, no language test, no requirement to give up your prior citizenship.

The 'Australians' in India are citizens of opportunity, who were born in India and retain their citizenship there, and the sympathy for them from actual Australians is zero.

tinus_hn 5 years ago | |

All very understandable but international law clearly states that you can’t prevent your own citizens from entering your country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return

If Australia wants to implement quarantines, fine. If Australia wants to appear tough and make an example of people by denying them their rights, not fine.

publicola1990 5 years ago | | |

I remember India itself violating this as part of pandemic related restrictions last year, when they tried to restrict entry of Indians who were abroad back to India.

twobitshifter 5 years ago | | |

Legally is allowing them to return and fining and imprisoning them the same as not allowing them to return?

viraptor 5 years ago | |

I'd be more understanding if this was applied consistently. But for example Oz knew the tennis tournament was unsafe, yet players were flown in, likely infected on the flight and hosted while sick. If the same can't be afforded to people returning home, that's BS.

Also if people would be jailed rather than sent back, it means gov can deal with their quarantine if they have to.

Aerroon 5 years ago | |

Australia keeping its own citizens out is heartless. Particularly during a crisis. Governments have a responsibility before all of their citizens. The responsibility for this doesn't solely rest on the government either. In a country where the highest power is supposedly held by the people, the people also share in this responsibility. That's what citizenship is about. If the government can renege on its deal, then can citizens get out of their obligation to pay taxes too?

Are you even a citizen if you're not legally allowed to return to the country?

chris_wot 5 years ago | |

There are thousands of Australians who tried to get home, but were unable to. Your comment is misleading.

ceilingcorner 5 years ago | |

Who cares if they are consistent? If my government tells me ahead of time that it’s going to infringe upon my rights, does that somehow make it acceptable?

ceilingcorner 5 years ago |

It’s for reasons like this that the American tradition of defending civil liberties and the Constitution is so important. Clearly some Anglosphere countries without this tradition have no issues violating it when convenient.

To think - thrown in prison for returning to your own country. It’s completely absurd.

quantum_state 5 years ago |

Feel obligated to say this “law” of the Australia government is an operational definition of a “shithole country” ....

mobilemidget 5 years ago |

This makes me wonder about, how cargo is currently handled between India and Australia?

kylehotchkiss 5 years ago | |

Two sets of crew on the plane, they never formally depart other than a pre-flight check.

intricatedetail 5 years ago |

This is pretty lame for a government to do. People pay huge taxes there for policies that 5 yo could come up with. What all those advisors get paid for? If I was Australian I would demand my taxes back.