Australia accused of playing politics for Covid’s travel ban

When Australia threatened to imprison citizens who breached the ban on returning from India during a severe coronavirus wave, it justified the move by saying it wanted to keep the public safe.

But the travel ban – which carries criminal penalties of up to five years in prison – has sparked a backlash against civil rights defenders, the Indian diaspora and the cricket community with allegations of racism, illegal and cruel.

“It’s a disgrace !! Blood in your hands, Prime Minister, ”Michael Slater, a former cricketer and Indian Premier League commentator, wrote on Twitter, referring to Scott Morrison.

The government fired back with support, calling Slater a “brazen” and suggesting he should take personal responsibility for traveling to India to work in the lucrative tournament during a pandemic. Canberra also denied that its border security policy was harsh or racist win votes.

But the controversy has rekindled the debate over the government’s responsibility to thousands of citizens stranded abroad as a result of strict flight limits and travel bans to keep Covid-19 out of Australia.

He also highlighted how Australia, formerly a world leader in pandemic manipulation, has struggled to reopen to the world due to a deployment of erroneous vaccines and a lost hotel quarantine system.

Some 9,000 Australian citizens want to return home from India, which on Thursday set a world record for 414,182 cases of Covid-19. Tens of thousands of Australians remain blocked in other countries.

Morrison, the prime minister, said he had to make tough decisions to ensure a third wave of infections did not reach Australia, a country that has almost eliminated the community spread of coronavirus, with few cases recorded outside hotel quarantine.

“The probability of all this [jail or fines] that it occurs is almost zero, “he said while criticizing the two-week ban, which is scheduled to run until May 15.

The federal and state governments of Australia had won worldwide praise to take tough measures to suppress Covid-19, including the closure of international borders at the beginning of the crisis.

But critics said the government had left the country vulnerable to Covid-19 outbreaks vaccinating less more than one in 10 people and resisting calls from opposition parties and health experts to build specialized quarantine centers.

“They just got arrogant and confident and thought they didn’t need to do anything else because everyone was enjoying going to the beach,” said Andrew Miller, president of the Medical Association of Australia in Western Australia.

Miller said data showing that one in 110 positive hotel quarantine cases resulted in a leak and that community outreach had panicked in Canberra by imposing a travel ban in India, for fear of new shoots.

This week, the government said it was considering using a former mining camp in remote northern territory to repatriate Australians from India after the ban was lifted. A proposal from the Victorian state government for a separate, specifically built quarantine center was also being discussed.

But it was the threats of criminal charges associated with the travel ban that outraged many Australians. Opponents claimed the sanctions were unique in the developed world and possibly illegal.

Leaders of the Indian community argued that Australian citizens of Indian descent were made to feel like second class citizens. “People feel racist,” said Jagvinder Singh Virk, president of the India Australia Strategic Alliance. He told Australian media that the restrictions were tantamount to White Australia’s policy, which aimed to prevent the migration of non-Europeans for much of the 20th century, which operated “under the radar”.

In India, a 73-year-old Melbourne man stranded in Bangalore has challenged whether orders issued under the Australian Biosafety Act violate the constitution, in a case that should be known from Monday.

The restrictions have also provoked criticism from MPs and even conservative columnists from The Australian newspaper, a staunch supporter of the Morrison government.

“He was discouraged, and while opinions may differ on the legality of government action, the fact is that they are immoral and cowardly because of the prime minister’s critical failures in taking on difficult tasks,” Niki Savva wrote. columnist.

Savva added that the measures looked like an old-fashioned political calculation where a majority of votes could be won or lost.

Closing state and international borders to prevent the spread of the virus has become a popular strategy during the pandemic, according to survey experts.

“The travel ban will be opposed by relatively small groups of people, such as newly arrived immigrants,” said Ian McAllister, a policy professor at the National University of Australia. “However, the loss of their support will be much less than the support they will attract for the measures of the general public.”