One could say as there are state backed international carriers flying near empty aircraft into Australia doing some repatriation now then it is a purely commercial decision for Qantas to have international fleets grounded at the moment, so therefore there’s no reason for stand downs currently. Of course no one believes this is the case.
The initial reasoning for stand downs was not closing of borders anyway, it was the massive and almost immediate drop off in passenger demand due pandemic fears. It could be argued that stand downs can be enacted until passengers numbers return to similar pre Covid levels. Fair Work has made comments indicating they’ll be giving employers flexibility as needed to ensure they stay in business, and that’s what the government will surely want.
Here’s an interesting quote form an
employment law firm:
Could that possibly give weight to the pandemic being the key event that triggered the stand down, not border restrictions, and the ending of the pandemic is the point where the triggering event is considered “over”?
Even if the status of the border is the key point I doubt whether the border will be open to the point where it was in December 2019. It will come back incrementally over a few years and I’d expect by the time that happens passengers numbers should have returned close to normal.