nancypants

we’re veering off topic/to PR but if you haven’t already observed how First Nations people in remote communities are treated, do so and you’ll realise it runs far deeper

percysmith

Hong Kong: also been there done that https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...l#post33186181

HB7

Yeh absolutely, and agreed it is slightly off topic, but it was more to show that unfortunately this makes sense.

Coming back to topic, any Australian should be allowed to enter Australia no matter what IMO. If the country then wants to detain him or quarantine him etc that's fine - but not being able to enter the country is just ridiculous.

percysmith

We have the same argument here with our subcontinent Permanent Residents. We aren’t making any new ones, but the ones we had as a colonial holdover, and their offspring born here are allowed to perpetuate Permanent Resident status.

After at least one wave was triggered by a returning Nepalese resident, some of the Chinese locals were asking for their permanent exclusion.

Being a dual national myself I am very much against that. It’d be a slippery slope to go down - subcontinent PRs, all non-Chinese PRs, BNO and *dual national PRs*, Hong Kong born PRs - eventually the CCP can be left with a Master Race (Mainland-born Han Chinese National PRs) as the only race with full rights in Hong Kong.

HB7

Interesting and informative. I know its off-topic, but how do you see this going in the next few years, post-covid?

Cathay1101

...Because this is Australia. It's ironic when you see the comparison to HKSAR, which was a quasi-autonomous democracy for a decade or so and, as I'm sure @percysmith will attest, has been going downhill ever since.

The other is a fully-fledged liberal democracy - and is perceived that way almost universally.

Completely with you. Australian governments have been disappointing me since day dot, but I cannot begin to fathom how the past 18 months have been tolerated - let alone popular. I am putting it down to widespread misperceptions of the relative risks COVID poses (not that they've had access to objective information thanks to the scaremongering of Channel 9) and the fact that Australia is, perhaps with NZ, one of the most highly-regulated democracies on earth. Find another country where people actively use Council by-laws to get neighbours to shorten the length of their hedges by 80cm and then boast about it. I guess that's the cost of starting out as a Prison Island. We've always enjoyed being told what to do and think!

Colesmore

I too have been disappointed by large parts of their response, and the plan to get back into gear seems shudderingly slow, however I can certainly see why it's popular. Whilst around the world morgues were overflowing and mass burials were taking place Australia was relatively unscathed and continues to be so. Near capacity crowds at sports, restaurants and bars open, living a somewhat normal (aside from travel) life appeals, rather than what could be 30-40k deaths from an illness they could have been prevented from entering the country. It's hard to look at the two scenarios and say you'd prefer the now 14 months of lockdown like restrictions in parts of Europe, along with the death toll over what Australia's been through. Perhaps it's not popular, just the best of a bunch of bad options.

I think soon enough public opinion will turn on the zero tolerance, as you say if the media stops scare mongering, and the most vulnerable are vaccinated. There's a lot of Australian's itching to get on a plane, and a lot of Aussie's (and others) abroad itching to get back. For the time being that itch remains less severe than the zero tolerance goal, but by year end I think that'll have swung, and by mid next year I'd say the community will tolerate it circulating in the community at low levels.

percysmith

This is one Government decision while I do not fully support, I can moderately live with Government's justification

It's discriminating against UK arrivals, which forms a large part of the upper echelon of the expat and dual national communities (including 777's family) and where Government officials sent their kids to boarding, so it was done with a lot of hurt to Tamar. And it's not an absolute ban, we know how to get around it (the Dubai and later Maldives sequestrations - or what we call 42 days' quarantine).

Many of the other Government decisions have me checking whether my other passport is still in the drawer. Chinese takeover of our system (not just resumption of sovereignty) was the reason why I was naturalised as a kid - the takeover is just 23 years late.

percysmith

Now speaking as a naturalised Australian, my family is pretty used to the concept bringing raw food into Australia attracts higher penalties than guns or drugs (and councils - a concept we didn't get until we got here - can really mess around with your house plans or what you do with your trees). Fortunately my mother isn't too high on the crazy scale on cooking Chinese delicacies/meds.

The germ-free island mentality has been burned into us every time we re-enter the country. So I'm not surprised at all Australian governments (federal and state) have implemented the exclusion policies they did, and are popularly supported.

Cathay1101

I'd have preferred zero lockdowns personally, and minimal restrictions beyond common-sense social distancing for that matter, but that's an unpopular opinion. I feel that's the case because 30-40k deaths sounds far scarier than a 1>% infection fatality rate and a median death age of 80, plus the fact that 95%+ of those hospitalised in Italy, the US and the UK have already had something wrong with them. My (Australian) family had no idea about all of this, of course, because that isn't what the ABC and Channel 9 were telling them. I'd never been an 'it's the media' person pre-COVID, but by God am I now!

Alas, I digress.

I just hope you're right that the pendulum swings the other way - I think it has to, although Arthur Sinodinos' comments out of Washington aren't exactly helpful. COVID is so big and scary that he's not had to come home and enjoyed his grace-and-favour home just fine, but don't open those borders ScoMo!
I feel for you and, more acutely, those without the other passport in the drawer. I spent most of my life in Hong Kong - many of which were spent living above Government House on Kennedy Road. It was only in recent years that I started to notice that, at the daily flag-raising at 9am, the Chinese flag was progressively larger than the Hong Kong flag - which always seemed comparatively smaller. The Chinese flag was always hoisted over the rear of the building, however, overshadowing the Hong Kong flag hoisted where the Governor's standard used to fly. Metaphorically and literally, I suppose it provided a good summation of what was bound to happen post-'97. It made for an interesting dissertation topic in my undergraduate degree, but I cannot forgive the British negotiators for what has been unleashed on Hong Kong. It's indefensible!

I'll stop digressing now!

Sod ScoMo and regulation-obsessed Australians. It won't kill you. Get vaccinated and wake up!

Cathay1101

Yup. It's staggering. The pervasiveness of the Australian state - at all three levels - is (in the democratic world) completely unparalleled. That's the only explanation I've got for policies like the India ban that's just been announced. A blatant and, almost diametric violation of the UDHR's 12th Article - but when has Canberra (or Beijing for that matter - it's a wee bit scary using them in the same sentence) cared for international agreements and standards!

bensyd

Why wouldn't it be popular? The alternative is pretty grim.

The banning of Australian return travellers from India is a disgusting overreaction. Up there with the threat of fines if you leave to a third country from NZ without requesting an exemption. The whole outbound travel ban is ridiculous.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

The one per cent is based on the total population. If you just look at the group it affects the most - those over 70 - the death rate is well over 10 per cent. And it's a painful death, alone, separated from your family.

percysmith

I see you've qualified that "in the democratic world", because Australia still hasn't had 小区 neighbourhood committee officials soldering your door in, nor are councils holding a candle to the HDB in terms of housing.

kiwifrequentflyer

Yes, I totally understand why people are upset at the government for effectively banning nationals from coming home, but as someone with parents above the age of 70, when I see people so casually go "oh if you knew that only 1% of the population would be impacted and their median age is 80 you wouldn't mind" - uh no, thank you, I very much mind.