Highlights
- Federal government set to announce additional repatriation flights to fly back Australians stranded in India
- A total of 36,865 Australians seeking to return home have registered with DFAT
- Most Australian citizens and permanent residents remain stranded in India
The Senate committee on COVID-19 on Thursday heard that the total number of Australians seeking to return home has now risen to 36,865 of which most remain in India, followed by those in the UK, Philippines, Thailand and South Africa.
And at least 8,070 of that stuck overseas are deemed to be vulnerable, a number that has also inflated since September, creating more hurdles for the Morrison Government's plan to bring as many Australians home by Christmas.
More flights for Australians stranded in India:
Tony Sheehan from DFAT told the Senate committee that the government will soon be facilitating more commercial flights to fly back Australians from India and other countries before and immediately after Christmas.
“DFAT will continue to organise and facilitate commercial flights including from Europe and India for the rest of 2020.
"We're working through logistics at the moment to make sure all the arrangements for those flights are in place so we'll be able to ensure that passengers will be able to get to the flights," he said.
Mr Sheehan added that the government has not yet announced the details of these additional flights but will be doing so in days to come.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne has confirmed that these new flights will be in addition to the current repatriation flights operated by Qantas that have brought Australians home from New Delhi.
'Depressed and desperate'
A woman who tried to get families with babies back to Australia says she was ignored by officials. (AAP) Source: AAP
In September, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he hoped to have "as many people home, if not all of them, by Christmas". But the government is now lagging behind on that commitment as an additional 10,000 Australians are now seeking to return home.
For Anand Kale, an Australian citizen who remains trapped in West India, the uncertainty of when he would be able to reunite with his wife, who he claims is suffering from anxiety and depression in Melbourne, is only aggravating his woes.
Speaking to SBS Punjabi, Mr Kale lamented that when a 'third-world country like India could bring over 3 million of its citizens home, “why has it taken so long for the Morrison Government to arrange repatriation flights for its own people?”
Anand Kale with his wife Smita Source: Supplied by Anand Kale
“India has brought over 3 million citizens home, why has it taken a first world country like Australia so long to make arrangement to bring their own people home.
“This should have been their top priority, but instead they are making plans to bring international students and other groups back. We would have all been back had they started sending out the Qantas flights back in August,” he said.
As new flights are yet to be announced, for Mr Kale and thousands of others stuck in India, questions remain as to how they will manage to return to their lives before the end of this year.
Will international students and skilled visa holders be returning to NSW?
Last week the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian revealed her intention to set aside up to 1,000 of the state’s weekly quarantine spots for returning international students and business specialists in critical areas in a bid to boost the state’s economy.
The Premier told SBS Punjabi in a statement that the state wishes to put this plan into motion early next year.
While the state government has assured that the proposal will only be implemented only if it gets an approval from the federal government, the idea itself has riled up leaders of the Opposition and Australians desperately waiting to reunite with their loved ones before Christmas.
Shadow Immigration Minister Kristina Keneally holds up pictures of stranded Australian citizens during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra Source: AAP
Raising her objection on the NSW Premier’s plan during Thursday’s Senate hearing, Labor Senator Kristina Keneally questioned the government representatives, if it was possible for Ms Berejiklian to unilaterally make that decision.
To this, Alison Frame from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet responded saying “At the moment the national cabinet of which Ms Berejiklian is the member have agreed that the priority is returning Australians and that consideration will be given to international students and other groups when they are in a position to do so.”
Migration agent Navdeep Singh said the development hasn’t fully quashed his hopes for the return of international students and other temporary visa holders.
“While it is evident from the government’s recent decisions that priority to return will be given to stranded Australians, but international students will be next in the queue followed by skilled migrants in critical areas.
“And this is likely to happen by early next year because the universities are bleeding due to the absence of students and we are hoping that the potential risk for Australia losing its student market to other study destinations like Canada and the UK will prompt them into opening its international borders,” said Mr Singh.
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