There is no explicit obligation for the Australian Gov to assist its citizens for whatever reason they require assistance overseas. The matters are deliberately grey, given you can't countenance all of the circumstances that may give rise to providing assistance.
Agreed that these are grey matters in terms of the extent that the Commonwealth should provide assistance. I agree with others that a "free ride" back to Australia is asking too much, but ensuring they have safe passage to a stable country like Cyprus or UAE for instance, would be a reasonable gesture given the circumstance. People love to point out that Lebanon is an active war zone now, and whilst that may be true, that wasn't the case 6 months ago or a year ago. One must also question the extent to which the Commonwealth has reached out to travellers who registered their travel with SmartTraveller along the way. For instance, if you were to travel to Lebanon a year ago, did the Commonwealth notify you recently saying, you should get out now whilst the going is good?
At the same time, it should be noted that matters aren't grey when it comes to consular officials in Lebanon. The government and its allies do owe them a responsibility to repatriate them safely to their country at whatever costs are necessary. Heck, Canada gave citizenship to US diplomats stuck in Iran in the 70s to ensure they could get safe passage back to America.
You mentioned the Morrison government during COVID decided not to assist stranded Australians beyond what they did with arranged charter flights and so on. That is a good example of the government utilising its discretion in these matters. That did not pass the pub test, and that government subsequently lost office. So that's the whole process, in democratic motion. On the flip side, we saw the former PM Rudd, who rode back home with Assange on a charter flight paid for by the government, which needs to be repaid by Assange or other people. .
If there is one thing I've learned about Australian values living here for a couple of years it's the principle that people deserve a ,"fair go". My understanding of "fair go," is people are given a reasonable opportunity given the circumstances to achieve what is necessary. And certainly to the extent that there is a pub test, one key determination is whether the individual got a fair go. Now again, we might disagree about whether the government should foot the bill to repatriate people stuck in this conflict zone. But wouldn't the principle of fair go mean that at least they be given an opportunity to leave a country that is in active conflict for another country that is stable? No one should be asking that they be flown first class to Sydney as the case is now, but at least give them an opportunity to escape the conflict.
They're just the company getting paid by the Aust government to do this.
Not sure what reason they would have to refuse the job?
Completely understand why Qantas did it. Great revenue and great PR for a company that has faced a lot of negative publicity over the past few years. I suppose a concern would be what impact (if any) diverting planes destined for particular routes to "rescue" Lebanese tourists will have on the route network.
I'd say when the said citizen has so imperilled themselves as to make repatriation dangerous or impossible, especially so when they have ignored urgent imperatives to leave beforehand.
If someone waits until there is a real 'hot war' in Lebanon, no government should be obliged to risk people or assets in getting them out between rockets and gunfire in the streets.
One largely unknown question, (and to be fair I haven't followed the situation in Lebanon as much as others) is how rapidly this unfolded? It's my understanding that this whole thing unfolded relatively quickly over the past 2-3 weeks with the whole pager incident. Certainly if you went to Lebanon over the winter to escape the cold Australian winter in favour of warmer climes, you could be excused for getting caught out I suppose.
-RooFlyer88
