Photo by Artur Tumasjan on Unsplash

Why are so many Australians finding it so difficult to go home?

As you may — or may not — be aware, at the moment Australians around the world are finding it very difficult, and in many cases prohibitively expensive, to fly back home to Australia. This may shed some light on why this is the case for those who are not, or only partially, aware.

1. Since mid-2020 there have been weekly limits set by the government on how many people can fly into the country, which is not enough for the tens of thousands waiting to return. And the government is still allowing thousands of Australians to leave the country temporarily for compassionate or business reasons each week, which subsequently continually adds to the number of people trying to get back to Australia.
2. Due to the very low weekly limits, airlines are flying to Australia with very few people on each flight, sometimes just 30 or 40 meaning they are charging much higher prices for flights to try to cover their expenses, often 3 or 4 times what the price would be normally (and sometimes MUCH more!).
   → Note: Any third party website showing a low cost flight to Australia is almost certainly showing a “ghost” flight that will not actually happen, and if you purchase and it’s subsequently cancelled, they usually don’t offer a refund only credit to buy more potential ghost flights on their website. At present the only way to ensure it’s a valid flight is to book directly with the airline, or through a recommended travel agent.
3. Some of the airlines are overbooking seats, I assume in the “hope” that the weekly limits will increase (note: they haven’t risen in over 6 months, with no indication they will do so anytime soon) and then when it gets closer to the flight date, they “bump” passengers and offer another flight in 2 or 3 months time, where the same thing can happen again. For many Australians trying to get home this has happened multiple times, sometimes for as long as a year, which if you have no income during this time also becomes even more expensive as you eat through your life savings.
4. Some people are in countries where there are no flights to Australia at all, and hence have to try to work out another country to travel to, which can be very difficult with so many closed borders, travellers from some countries not allowed to enter others, embassies not issuing tourist visas at all where required …etc.
5. And of course if you do make it back to Australia, you have to add another $3000 onto your costs to pay for 14 days government mandated hotel quarantine, more if you’re a couple or family. The end result can have a family paying $20,000-$30,000 or even more, when you factor in ALL the costs for getting home and quarantining. Obviously there are some families who simply can’t afford that much.

“Why didn’t they come home early last year?”

Ahh… that old chestnut those on social media — and some in the media or politics — like to trot out regularly. In March/April last year, no one had any idea how long the pandemic would last, nor how serious it would become. Indeed many assumed it would be a few months of hunkering down, mask wearing and a few other relatively minor measures, and then it would fade away like every other recent virus outbreak has done (think SARS, MERS, “bird flu” …etc). We’re all geniuses in hindsight, right?

So if you had a job in a foreign country, one that seemed secure at the time, and your kids in a good local school, access to safe housing and good quality health care, what would you have done? Even the Australian government was advising those who were in a secure, safe location that staying put might be the best option.

But of course a year — now almost a year and a half — is a long time. Work contracts — and the residential visas often attached to them — come to an end. In addition many organisations everywhere have had to fire employees due to the long term economic impact of the pandemic. So gradually more and more Australians, many with families, have found themselves with no income or way to support themselves, trying to get back to their home country.

Or in our personal situation, we were waiting on my long-term partner’s visa to be processed and issued, if I had opted to return home in March last year it would have meant a year or more apart.

And yet there are still some ignorant people asking, “Why didn’t they come home back then?”. Duh!

We’re not asking for much (or so you would hope)

All that most of us still waiting to return are asking from those in Australia are:

1. To have a little more empathy for our situation:
   The often extremely insulting comments coming from many within the country either overtly or obliquely that we “chose” not to come home earlier last year, is completely ignorant to the situation of many at the time, as outlined briefly above.
   → Also, when the bushfires ravaged the east coast of Australia in late 2019, did we dismiss those who lost their homes with a glib, “You chose to build a house in a bushfire danger zone”, or did the country come together and offer empathy and support?
2. To expand quarantine capacity:
   It’s been over a year now, a year for the Australian government to recognise that Covid isn’t going away anytime soon, and that it should be the responsibility of any national government to do all that they can to help their citizens return home in a time of need. If they truly accepted this as their responsibility, there would have been ways to find or create additional, fit for purpose quarantine facilities around the country.
3. For everyone to get vaccinated as quickly as possible:
   The longer you delay getting vaccinated, the longer it will be before all Australians trying to get home will be able to. Please don’t believe the misinformation going around social media and much of the sensationalist mainstream media, if you have doubts about the safety of the vaccines please make an effort to speak with your local GP, or a similarly qualified health professional, to get the full facts. People’s lives, physical and mental health are depending on it.

The past year and a half has been a time for all Australians to come together, to help each other out wherever possible during an extremely challenging, once in a generation period. But this shouldn’t exclude those who through unforseen and often unavoidable circumstances find themselves outside the country, just wanting to come home to friends, family… and safety.

(Apart from trying to get home to Australia, I also design & build websites for small & medium sized businesses: Zava Design)