I think the real concern here is just the lack of information of what was going on here.
You would have seen Scott Morrison up in Queensland last week saying, “Well, people can’t come here because they can only come to New South Wales and the Northern Territory.†And they made a big deal about what is, of course, a one-way bubble – people can’t go to New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern put in place some pretty strict restrictions, including banning people coming into New Zealand.
And then all of a sudden people found out that there were a couple of dozen people who have gone to Victoria, people who have gone to WA, people who have gone to South Australia. It wasn’t quite the restricted bubble that the federal government announced.
So, I think that was the issue, just a lack of transparency and information.
Now, state governments are dealing with it. I don’t see it as the biggest issue, but it is, certainly in terms of our international borders, I will tell you what concerns me more, is the 29,000 stranded Aussies overseas and getting them back soon.
And we’ve been raising this now for many months. And we are getting, every federal MP, I’m sure Labor and Liberal, are getting so many representations from distraught family because people are just stranded overseas.
And that is clearly the federal government that has responsibility for our international borders. And they need to be doing more about that.
