SOPS and Obba,
I’m an overseas Aussie and have been overseas since well before the pandemic started. I have been employed mostly throughout, as have roughly a dozen other Aussie friends I have in the country that we are in. To my knowledge none of us have ever registered with DFAT to come home and therefore would not be included in the 40,000-50,000 waiting to return. I imagine there are tens of thousands out there in similar situations to us. And to be honest, Australia is not the same place it was when I left, and I’m quite happy not being there. I’d be lying if I said I was proud to be an Aussie at certain times over the course of the last 20 odd months.
Should any of us have the unfortunate circumstance arise such as, losing a job, contract completion, being placed on LWOP indefinitely, have a family member become ill (here or at home), and we wish to come home, then we would have to register with DFAT and would be added to the list of those 40-50,000 waiting to come home.
Or maybe we might register because we just feel like trying to come home and reunite with family and friends who continually check in on us to see if we are doing ok, and perhaps meet new additions to the family that arrived since we were last home. There really is hundreds of reasons how people like us have found ourselves in the position we are in, each slightly different. The decision to jump in line is easier for some than it is for others.
Add the issue of the ever diminishing arrival caps, and it’s pretty clear how the number doesn’t go down.
Can you now figure it out fellas?