Reading this article just now, I can't but also feel the same way as other Australians stranded overseas. While I am fortunate enough to have a valid visa, a job, and a roof over my head here in Japan, there are many overseas that are not so fortunate. Some who cannot return home have expired visas and therefore cannot find a job in the mean time, while some are facing the real prospect of homelessness as they're waiting for an opportunity to return home. Many are missing out on being with their families, to witness births of their children, and even missing the chance to say their final goodbyes to dying loved ones. I am also one of those people, and have to live with the regret that I chose to stay here in the mean time as opposed to financially ruining myself for a chance to return home that is not guaranteed.
While it is easy for me to hate on the government for abandoning its own people stranded overseas, it is saddening to see that Australians back home are backing and supporting the government's decisions for putting a cap on Australians trying to return from overseas. This is supposedly to help ease the strain on the hotel quarantine system, but it's clear that the hotel quarantine system does not work: people who return to Australia who aren't infected risk the chance of catching the Wuhan virus in hotel quarantine, simply because hotels were never designed for that purpose in the first place. Rather than put money in setting up dedicated quarantine facilities away from populated cities, the Federal government would rather continue with this flawed hotel quarantine system. However, state governments are to blame too for demanding border lock downs, gladly ignoring the plight of their own citizens stranded abroad. Then there's the average Australian who believes that those stranded abroad deserve their fate, citing that they had many chances to return to Australia, but didn't take it. I feel that this attitude smacks of tone deafness in that each Australian that is abroad has a reason for being overseas in the first place - many went overseas to find work, some went overseas to see loved ones and family. Especially for those working overseas, returning home is not as simple as packing your bags and going to the airport - it's not like a holiday: You need to give advanced notice to resign from your job, give notice to move out from your house or apartment, not to mention figuring out what to do with many of your belongings - furniture, cars and such - pretty sure you can't fit all of that in to a suitcase. To say that they had many opportunities to return home is also false - since very early on, caps were put in place that meant that the chance to return to Australia became essentially a lottery, and sometimes a very expensive one at that. As a result of the caps, airlines are forced to cancel seats, or prioritise business class passengers over economy class ones in an effort to recover some of their losses. It has also led to the significant increase in airfares, meaning only travel has now become the domain of the wealthy.
Australians have had a reputation of mate ship and always looking out for their own during hard times, but the Wuhan virus has showed me that Aussie mate ship is dead. Australians should be putting pressure on the government to get its own people home, not gladly throw them under the bus. Yes, people are scared, but that is no excuse for turning on each other. Whereas people were up in arms and throwing their support behind drug smugglers like Schappelle Corby, or the Bali 9 to put pressure on the government to get them home rather than leave them at the mercy of Indonesia's very strict judicial system, why should Australians stranded abroad be given the finger in comparison, especially since most stranded Australians have been well behaved, law abiding, and aren't facing life in prison or the death penalty for attempting to smuggle drugs in to another country?
For those Australians cheering the government on for keeping Aussies abroad out of the country, I can only hope that you don't land yourselves in a situation where you require the help of the Federal government to bail you out. If you do, I hope you practice what you've been preaching and turn down any and all offers of government assistance, and get yourselves out of whatever mess you put yourself in.
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