yeah nah. Comes a point when you have to look after yourself. Ask all the people in various industries stood down on a financial precipice and see if we don’t have a covid problem.

im all for sharing the love. But not at the expense of Australia. It was the governments hesitation in closing Australia off earlier due to being perceived as being ‘racist’ amd not wanting to rock the boat that got us here. all
you have to do is look at idiots like Andrew Bolt and his comments on the India ban. Why he gets any airtime is beyond me. But this is the society we live in. A society where f@&kwits can access the wider media, forcing the government to waste time defending stupid accusations rather than getting on with the job. Does anyone seriously think the ban on travellers from India is racially motivated?
Australia first, help when we can.

The Feds have seen the effects of the ‘we kept you safe’ narrative that has benefited governments in NZ, NT, QLD, WA and Tas, and they know it holds power with a fearful populace. After the disastrous response to the acts of sexual deviance and culture in parliament, and after a less than stellar vaccine rollout, the Libs will not risk any more electoral damage until next year’s Federal election is done and dusted. Maybe talk of a travel bubble here and there to keep folks like us hopeful, but no real action unless the risk is practically nil...

However...

Make no mistake they are itching for international travel to return. No, they actually desperately NEED it to. It’s budget week next week and you can bet Treasury forecasts don’t add up unless immigration is juiced back to 200000 plus Net per year; oh, and let’s face it, the big business donors will be demanding the flow of warm bodies, erm sorry, ‘skilled labor’, to put a lid back on that nasty wage growth, and the shocking requirements of having to spend a realistic amount of time and money to train locals for jobs, both of which is just simply unacceptable to them.

International travel will return with a vengeance just as soon as vaccination numbers and electoral realities allow for it.

I wonder if you're conflating two different propositions here?

Yep, the Gubbinment would like needs immigration to return but I'm not so sure about tourists.

For every international visitor bringing their ¥, their € and their £ into Australia, Bill and Barbara are taking Australian $$'s out of the country to spend in places-that-don't-have-our-G.S.T.

I totally agree, and while certain industries want international travellers I suspect that the pent up demand means that there's going to be a lot more Australians heading overseas to spend their dollars than there will be tourists inbound.

TTS

EDIT
Iron ore just hit $200 ton, that'll have Josh smiling

FFS are you really comparing India to the western world? I’ve worked in India for a few months - I like the place, but let’s not make any mistake here... disease and destitution is endemic in the population at large. A million people die from diarrhoea every year and a third of the country doesn’t have access to a working toilet

No I’m not, I didn’t mention Tourism, though inbound or outbound it’s all favorable for us to get back to work, we want bums on seats.

However , Immigration doesn’t return the way treasury forecasts need it to unless International travel returns. It’s not just permanent migrants. But PR holders, Students, Temporary workers, etc etc... it adds up to many more travelers than a Net migration figure of 200000 (many of whom also then themselves travel back and fourth to visit family and friends). The governments numbers don’t add up without it all, and many businesses will be ‘leaning’ on them making it happen ASAP.

Iron ore may have hit $200 a ton (I’d say Gina and twiggy are smiling more than Josh), but Structural steel is up about 3-4 times, as is the price of lumber... that won’t do the building industry any favors unless there’s a way to keep demand at levels that will endure the required price rises. We know the rent seekers in the property industry love the way our immigration policies have kept demand for property elevated. They are a prime example of those in industries beyond tourism wanting unrestricted travel to return soon, and at the highest levels possible.

Utterly incredible. Queensland is going to make its QR code app mandatory next month. That’s May 2021. It only made the app available in March 2021. The app is now only voluntary. But even when it is made mandatory, it won’t be mandatory for everyone. And yet that ****wit Steven Miles thinks he is king ****… Christ are Queenslanders all intellectually impaired that they voted incompetent dip****s like him back in. Rhetorical question there.

How long has this pandemic being going. And it takes them until bloody May 2021 to make QR codes mandatory. And they still stuff it up allowing separate systems to be used. Yep, that’s going to streamline things, speed the process up. Make everyone use the one system, nah. Why the hell would you want to do that.

Who is impacted?

"Most" hospitality venues – in other words, pubs, restaurants and cafes will need to use it.

Mr Miles said licensed clubs that used ID scanning would still have the choice of using that for their record keeping.

Soooo, you agree with the mandatory QR code app or not? Your messaging is all over the shop.

seems very clear to me, or are you being sarcastic…

in case you are not , yes I agree with mandatory QR codes

Errrr, I’ve been checking in with QR code’s in most places in QLD since about this time last year, or mid year, can’t remember exactly.

Wtf are you on about?

A mishmash of all different private organisations collecting collecting a lot more data that that required by the Health Dept.
Some worked some didn't.
Funny that there is a lot of people called Micky Mouse living in Oz.

Here in the UK we use the NHS app to check in to places/venues. Takes less than 2 seconds and it’s anonymous. You download the app switch on bliuetooth and off you go. You don’t need to register or anything. When you go somewhere you open the app tap “check in to venue” scan QR code and your done. You can then get an alert on your phone telling you that you have been in contact with someone who has subsequently tested positive, and you must isolate. That’s the end of it. It leaves it up to the user to comply or not.

how did that work out for the UK over the last 12 months?

Yeah real gold standard Covid management over there.

To be fair to the POMS, they’re a global crossroads interlaced across many other countries, and have almost 3 times the population, not an out of the way island, however beautiful or lucky that island is.

and they’ve jabbed over 40m people with a vaccine whilst our government has naval gazed and managed 2m

There seems to be a lot of naval gazing on this thread quite frankly. We are a small island that relies on imports from the continent. We have no option to isolate ourselves, but it feels as if the government are getting closer to that stance every day. Variants will arrive regardless of actions at the border. Millions of key workers are exempt from amber list quarantine because the benefit of them working outstrips the risk.

But anyway, the UK government released its green list yesterday. 12 territories of which 4 are only letting visitors in if you can believe that. And it includes Aus and NZ!

surely if you decide to holiday in Australia, you would still be at the mercy of our quarantine laws regardless of whether you are vaccinated or not. Which would mean two weeks isolation on arrival. Which I would think might dampen anyone’s or most people’s plans. Especially as you have to pay for it, somewhere around 1,800 squid for an individual.

"Six overseas travellers who reported they were fully vaccinated have tested positive for COVID-19 while in hotel quarantine, authorities have revealed.

The numbers were released in this week’s NSW Health COVID-19 surveillance report as the federal government pushes forward with its vaccine passport plans.

The report states six people in the NSW hotel quarantine system tested positive over four weeks ending on May 1, despite reporting they were vaccinated prior to landing in Australia."

Make of that what you will.

What I make of that is that the media is more interested in clickbait than objective reporting.

Precisely - there was lots of fluff and no facts in the article!

Just because you are vaccinated, does not mean you can’t catch COVID. It just means you won’t get really sick. It seems to have crept into peoples thinking that if your vaccinated, you can’t catch COVID.

True. Though there does seem to be growing data sets indicating that CV may not be transmissible if you are vaccinated. Time will tell how that goes.

What the article should have highlighted was that it seems those infected and vaccinated were symptom free. CV isn’t scary if it does nothing to you. The takeaway should have been - get vaccinated.

As mentioned before, it should be me in December 2021 doing exactly this. I am resigned to it not happening now. I was actually being sarcastic about how wonderful it is to have a country on our safe to travel list that isn't allowing visitors!

On the vaccine, it is believe transmission is reduced by up to 50% with a vaccine. There is less and less Covid 'in the system' meaning it will be increasingly difficult for someone to find it.

yes it could be clickbait or it could be people from a certain country that is going through a massive number of cases every day and are not averse to producing counterfeit documents.

https://qz.com/india/1993757/indians-are-using-fake-covid-19-results-to-travel-skip-exams/

https://www.refworld.org/docid/538c369f4.html

The vaccine will only save you from getting really sick if you catch COvid not so much from transmitting it. Although look at the Seychelles who are pretty much all vaccinated with vaccine from their North Asian benefactor. Apparently it isn't very effective and there is another wave starting there.

Well if there is wave that won’t make you sick what’s the problem?

This is from the leading newspaper of the Seychelles:

So the vaccine is working as intended. It protects against severe illness and hospitalisation. There’s an amount of spread because the island re-opened a few months ago (they’re heavily reliant on tourism).

So the vaccine is working as intended. It protects against severe illness and hospitalisation. There’s an amount of spread because the island re-opened a few months ago (they’re heavily reliant on tourism)

Nobody is allowed to get sick from now on, you should know that.

Yes it seems that most of the general population are woefully ignorant and too lazy to educate themselves enough to have a modicum of understanding with regards to viruses and vaccines.

Millions of virus particles pass through our bodies everyday. A bucket of sea water near the coast line contains more virus particles than people on this planet. Some viruses are actually good and help us function whilst others not so good. Nothing in life is guaranteed and yet the numbty public are happy to consign responsibility for their own life and wellbeing over to the government whom will manipulate health propaganda in the most cynical fashion in order to ensure power remains within the LNP and or Labor Party. Look at WA.

We desperately need a Bill of Rights in this country. The abuse of power is obvious. The India fiasco and the threat of fining citizens trying to get home by the federal government is a national disgrace. Rather than lead they react. Poll driven selling a narrative that doesn’t pass any science. Just abysmal behaviour from the leadership that can’t commit to any timeline or cohesive policy on how we get out of this mess. We desperately need a strong leader to steer us out of this swamp. Could you imagine this sort of paralysis during a war? I no longer have faith or respect for Australia.
We suffer en masse from CLS. Chicken Little Syndrome.
Ah, that feels better.😀

What I don't understand is the number of deaths in the Seychelles is essentially 0, so why the lockdown? Are their hospitals overrun? Or is it is the global obsession with case numbers? To me it seems like the vaccine is working if no one is dying/clogging up the hospitals

It does cut transmission drastically; if you yourself aren't as ill with the virus (having been vaccinated) then there are far fewer viral particles in your upper airway, hence far less to cough and sneeze out, hence reducing the transmission. So I'm led to believe... Makes sense though!

The treasurer says today that the international border won't open till 2022 and that it's important that we "follow the medical advice". What is this "medical advice" that everyone seems to be following these days? "Medical advice" seems to cover a multitude of sins - from jailing returning citizens, locking down states and closing borders. Show us the evidence! What is happening in 2022 that renders it safe to open borders then? Why 2022 and not 2023/2024/never?

PM says elimination is not the goal and that borders will reopen when "it is safe to do so". What, like CASA's definition of safety - when zero planes are in the air, when there are zero cases of COVID...?

I suspect the safest thing to do is to have everyone vaccinated, but the govt seems to have shot themselves in the foot on that too - besides botching the rollout, now with minimal/no cases in the community, the side effects of the vaccine are more lethal than COVID and people feel there is no urgency/need to be vaccinated. After all, we're all right, Jack.

I'd love to know what the govt's definition of "safe" is, and how they expect to achieve that in 2022.

A federal election.

This is the exact issue... my elderly parents (well >50+) are both in reasonable health but refusing to get vaccinated due to fear of blood clots. But apart from the fact that two of their children have been heavily impacted by the pandemic, their lives in the past 6 months, not so much. Mind you, they are also feeling "safe" in QLD. With no covid circulating in the community they aren't afraid and therefore not willing to take the vaccine "risk".
Its a dilemma - both have had the flu shot this year and would not accept being called an anti-vaxxer. I'm now grateful to be fully vaccinated, but I fear for the industry that this kind of mindset is developing in the older population, let alone the younger ones!

Would that take place on medical advice, too?

I can’t tell. Not really much news coming out of the Seychelles. But they aren’t really instituting a lockdown. Masks compulsory, large gatherings banned, schools closed for two weeks. But inbound tourism is still encouraged, and restaurants and bars open with shorter hours.

I’ve said it earlier and I’ll say it again, Liberal or Labor, ‘Safe’ means ‘electorally’ safe... that is, they aren’t risking next years election to give people their freedoms back.

Once that election is won, it’ll then mysteriously become ‘safe’ for travelers from certain countries/regions, and the vaccinations will be heralded as an unmitigated success to allow for those bubbles and relaxed quarantine requirements... (look at the US relaxing their travel requirements) .


https://www.smh.com.au/business/bank...07-p57q0r.html

...the big business string pullers are already demanding the floodgates open and they do NOT want to pay the wages required to attract the talent, nor provide any costly training to us expensive locals as would have to occur if our borders were to remain closed (they aren’t even attempting to hide this fact). They want the taps for low-wage ‘skilled’ migration turned back on ASAP.

Hard Borders will have to start to loosen because the federal government ain’t getting on with building the quarantine facilities required to funnel masses of people back in. They’ll need the hotel quarantine spots currently used for Australians returning from Europe, the US etc, so that NAB and the like can get their accounting and IT graduates from the subcontinent, and restaurants to get their chefs from the Philippines, etc, etc...

SO, all of a sudden bubbles for the vaccinated become acceptable from Singapore, Europe, the UK the US etc where vaccination rates are high, home quarantine perhaps acceptable from others, reduced quarantine from others... so as not to have those people using up hotel quarantine spots for those other areas that may need 14 days... and on it goes.

The migration Ponzi is far too engrained for us to remain a closed shop for long, but our livelihoods will continue to be sacrificed until the election has been run and done because both major parties have seen just how potent that is with the average voter.

Yes it’s an interesting loop we find ourselves in.

We have zero covid so there is no rush to get vaccinated so the border opening gets further delayed so there is no covid so there is no rush to get vaccinated so the border opening gets further delayed so there is no covid so there is no rush to get vaccinated so the border opening gets further delayed so there is no covid so there is no rush to get vaccinated so the border opening gets further delayed so there is no covid so there is no rush to get vaccinated so the border opening gets further delayed so there is no covid so there is no rush to get vaccinated...

:hmm:

If we do get a breakout here in the not do distance future, the rush on toilet paper we have seen will be minuscule compared on the rush for the vaccination.

That's a bum steer! :}

I think we need one to make people “have some skin in the game”.

Maybe then we will see some leadership!