Wonder how many Australians travelled overseas when they were instructed not to? The Australian on 02 April :
“About 16,000 Australians flew out of the country in the fortnight after Scott Morrison told everyone not to go overseas, triggering calls for defiant international travellers to foot the bill for their forced quarantine when they return home.
The Australian can reveal the 16,000 citizens went overseas by plane between March 19 and 30 even though the Prime Minister gave a very clear instruction to “not travel abroad” on March 18.
In addition, 3800 Australians flew out from March 25-30 after an official ban on all overseas travel came into force on March 24.
The numbers sound significant on their own, but 16,000 represents 0.064% of the population and 3,800 represents 0.015%.
Now it's the herd mentality to stick the boot in to these people. Whilst some are no doubt sticking it to the authorities, thinking it doesn't apply to them, many probably had strong connections outside Australia and had a difficult decision to make whether to go or not. Having been in that position, I empathise with this second group.
Certainly the 3,800 who travelled after the offical ban came into effect, would not have been allowed to travel unless they were specifically excluded from the ban - most likely residing overseas. We have a copy of our lease with us (and foreign IC cards) , for the point in time (which may be in 6 weeks, maybe 3 months) when we need to return to Singapore - so we can show we reside outside of Australia.
We actually defied Singapore government's "Do Not Travel" advice to be closer to elderly parents in Australia. We will face consequences on return which include no government subsidised health care for COVID-19 related illness in first 14 days (private should cover though), which was formally announced, and possibly even having to pay for hotel for 14 days on our return (which was mentioned in some interviews, but not in official announcement). We could have chosen to evade such consquences by departing 24 hrs earlier, but chose to depart later as we felt it was a lower risk for exposure to COVID19 , boarding a non-stop flight with only SIN originating pax (vs. leaving before deadline on SIN-CGK-SYD-MEL or SIN-HND/NRT-SYD-MEL .... no thanks to either).
At the end of the day, some have left AU as they think they above the law, others have left, due to their personal/family situation. Remember until a month ago, the global workforce was incredibly mobile.
. I mean, if it was a short holiday then they left late and are simply dolts and need protection from themselves. If it was a long holiday, then they had plenty of opportunity to come home early, and my conclusion is the same.
