It doesn't matter if the border are open or not, we over 50's are not travelling anyway. Everyone I have spoken to about it states straight off the bat, oh yes! I can hardly wait, then when you ask what if you get sick and then the answers that matter come out. Oh well I would have to be vaccinated, why I say what if there isn't one. then there are new questions, if I get infected, where will I be treated, how will I be treated, who's paying for that and most importantly how do I get home. So there you have your answer, we won't be travelling for quite a while yet and most of our young people can't afford to anyway. This means there isn't going to be cruise ships and airliners filled with tourists anytime soon.

Media reports indicate that it was because the Victoria Police Union was unimpressed with the idea of military personnel performing certain roles in quarantine hotels. Seriously. Great to see that even in these times the Andrews government can be held
to ransom by public sector unions.

Dan Andrews used to be indecisive but now he is not so sure.

Amongst the bunch of my parents friends - all over 65, and most over 70, the attitude is a little different - as intrepid travellers, they’re chomping at the bit to get out and “live” again - being holed up is worse than a death sentence for them..

Thankfully the world is made up of all types!

The Northern Territory have announced they will push through with their July 17 open date, but will not allow visitors from areas deemed hotspots (requiring a statutory declaration to be filled out).

This seems like a good strategy to manage the health risks of opening the borders.

Maybe requiring an ID check upon arrival to bolster this policy would be worth pursuing.

And another good CFA Leader gone too thanks to his Union pandering...anyway, I recall how good it was to have all State & Fed Govt. leaders working towards the same goal. That seems to have gone by the wayside now.:(

In total agreement with you here! So many 'Aussies' come from so many other countries (my own family included) yet can't travel in the foreseeable future. Especially now as a lot of the rest of the world has realised that we're going to have to live with this virus (with it's very low mortality rate) and there may never be a vaccine or cure!

I have no problem with people travelling. As long as they sign up for a 14 day stay at their cost in a ‘guarded hotel’ on their return. Be good for the local hotel industry. Plus they will need to pay for any medical bills they incur as no travel insurance will cover them.
No exceptions on the 14 day in a hotel room. People can’t be trusted to stay at home in self quarantine.
Do they want to go with that rule set in place?

Maybe they should apply for an exemption? It took minutes and I’m only a PR of another country. If your relatives are from other countries then they don’t even have to apply. They can leave on the other countries passport.

That's exactly my point, they are all saying that, yeah bring it on lets go, until you present them with, what will you do if you become infected in a foreign country.
No Insurance cover
No Health Care
Possibly hospitalised
Not allowed to travel even if you are physically able
All at you own cost

What they say they will do and what they will do when presented with the opportunity are two very different things.

Truer words have never been spoken.

However, you will still get the short sighted that wont give it a thought and they'll potentially reap what they sow in some far away land. The airlines wont mind.. They've got your dollars! :E

What you are describing is the Bridging Visa E, this border closure is much less restrictive than the BVE that can never get travel rights..

The mortality rate in Australia is fairly low, not so in many other countries. Closed cases of Covid-19 World Wide is a 9% mortality rate, recently improved from 12% last week.

Of course they want to do it safely - things will settle down and improve, faster than most expect, and solutions to the problems will surface one way or another.

I realise this is a great place for the doom and gloom paraders, but I think things will improve quicker than most anticipate.

We have been dealing with with virus properly for about 3 months. A lot has changed in that time, a lot more will
change in the next 3-6months.

The solution to the problem is a vaccine, so two years of international border closures is realistic at this point along with a deep and long global recession. The effects of which will be felt in about 3 months.

No, “a” solution is a vaccine. If we get 2, 3 or 5 years down the track without a vaccine, what then?

In the absence of a vaccine and unless the virus is eradicated by stopping it's transmission, we'll be back to the days when no-one went on overseas holidays.

I don’t think people are getting the main problem here. All the talk of statistics, case fatality rates, R-noughts etc is well and good, but that’s not what’s driving discourse at the moment. Taking some recent headlines straight off the news.com.au page (yes it’s tabloid but it’s also what a lot of Australians read so...):

“Expecting up to 25 cases: Hundreds Flying In From Virus Hotspots”
“Returned Travellers Refusing Virus Tests”
“Surprise Party Infects 18 Guests”
“Scary 9 Day Virus Milestone”
“This Virus Isn’t Going Anywhere”

ANY new cases of this virus are being treated as a tabloid media tragedy. To the point where the media have lost all focus on any rational plans to live with this virus, and solely create headlines to scare the public which politicians in turn have to react to. People obviously want something close to eradication.

Victoria has 29 new cases and media reports it as an utter disaster. Yesterday Germany had 500 new cases, Spain 400, Italy 200 and France 300 but over there things are getting back to normal, borders are reopening without restriction and airlines are flying again. I’m sure the lack of fearmongering news sites like news.com.au helps with their mindset

Your previous predictions of Australia’s outbreak being worse than Europe and the US, and the complete worldwide closure of all borders for a month didn’t even come close to fruition, so Nostradamus you are not.

While a vaccine may never be found, what is as important is the further progression of effective treatments, and considering the time, money and effort spent researching those at the moment and how far they’ve already come in only 3 or 4 months, I feel they will be the key to things improving going forward.

Never volunteer and never be the first. If in 5 years from now those recovered cases need to be permanently strapped to an O2 bottle just for some sort of normality or there are any fertility issues arising, that's an even bigger problem and not just to our health system. Lets keep the numbers low until we know what we're dealing with and what acceptable risk is. Dying from it only appears to be the biggest risk at this point.

And never make sweeping statements.

Wow - you are a glass half empty type! :-)

Life is way too short to take it all so seriously. The world shall go on, like it always has!

In the NT -The Territory stayed safe by closing our borders to all states.

In the next step, we will stay safe by keeping our borders closed to suburbs and hot spots that are not safe.

This is about being prepared – using the four weeks we gave ourselves to be prepared.

From the 17th of July: if your suburb or local government area has been declared a coronavirus hot spot, then you will not be permitted free access to the Territory.

You will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days. And it will be enforced.

In addition to the current arrival information, you will be required to declare if you have been in, or travelled through, a hot spot in the last 28 days.

Making a false statement in a statutory declaration is against the law. If we find you have lied on the border form – been to a hot spot but told us that you hadn’t – it could mean a prison sentence of up to three years.

If you are from interstate and you live in a hot spot area, your own government is telling you the area is not safe, and you should be in lock down.

If you are meant to be in lock down, then you shouldn’t be leaving your home. You shouldn’t be coming here.

If you do leave your home and come here, we will lock you down, and if you break our rules, we can lock you up.

So don’t come here.

For everyone else – the 99 per cent of Australia that’s safe – we will be open, and we can’t wait to see you.

Bend alot -

Not really hard and perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.

But some will lose their proverbial over it.

As always.

Dan is closing Tulla until mid July.

Is that all flights or just international ones?

Has asked all International Repatriation flights to be moved to other cities for the next 2 weeks

Well down wheels down, an excellent demo of why you have to check what you read on the internet.

On a related note, AA has now cancelled/pushed back the resumption of SYD and AKL to LAX until early 2021.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...ydney-auckland

Nice to see that the travel agent was wrong AGAIN!

And now with the outbreaks in Victoria stopping all international flights and in NSW the chances of September for Trans Tasman and Pacific are looking even more remote

& uk open to 75 countries from next week with no insane restrictions or quarantine. Tourism restart task force said 1 july for nz but ardern wants to play dictator before she gets booted in September

How many times can someone be wrong before they give up?? Border Quarantine works when implemented properly.

cannot believe any pilot doesn't want to work.

quarantine totally unnecessary. Healthy people don't die from corona. Most don't even know that have it. Only the unhealthy should be in lock down and their carers

The UK has over 300,000 cases and 43,000 deaths, do you really think that emulating their policies is the best idea?

Jacinda Ardern approval ratings are skyrocketing in NZ because of her strict border controls.

BNEA320, it is embarrassing how wrong you are on this issue, please give it a rest.

yes uk is right in opening borders. They should have locked down unhealthy though. Think ardern will be booted. Many hate her with a passion. She's killed economy like here. All depends how dumb nz electorate is.

maybe new govt in qld and nz soon

You are missing his point.

Number of infected increasing due to more testing finding more cases.

Number of hospitalisations reducing, as is rate of death from those infected.

Check out the data - not the headlines.

UK - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

There is more to the story than the mass fear generating headlines.

And only the unhealthy die. Complete over reaction by govts here.

so uk economy will kick off nicely next week & we still have state border closures here. Crazy.

if my life had be ruined by insane govt decisions I'd be wanting to take revenge on govt.

So what is your contention? Open the borders to all and sundry? Allow the elderly and immunocompromised to be the sacrificial lambs for the sake of preserving our high paying jobs?

Speaking as a stood down pilot, I have zero issue with taking 12-18 months of reduced/no pay for the sake of the greater good.

Use this period to spend time with family, work in another industry, study or simply have a break and get into a normal sleeping routine.

Those that wollow in self pity will remain bitter and twisted about a situation that is beyond our control, those who accept what is happening and look at the big picture may actually come out the end of this with a positive experience.

we should have locked down the unhealthy & their carers & on one else. Can still do that.
you seem to forget that govt policies here led to more deaths than Corona. .... suicide overdoses dv. Depression ruined lives. Looks like jobkeeper/jobseeker might end early or be highly modified.

Here’s why it won’t work to just isolate the elderly and vulnerable

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ly-vulnerable/

Have a read of something outside the echo chamber of your own opinion.

No mate, was just pointing out that you’d missed his point.

I don’t know what the best way to handle this problem is - I believe keeping the STATE borders closed is ridiculous. AUSTRALIA has enough medical resources to deal with any community infection now. The media led hyper fear regarding the current Victorian clusters is amusing - what were we trying to achieve again? Zero cases? An unburdened health system?
We aren’t seperate kingdoms, we are the one country. One economy that is bleeding badly due to poor management at the state level.

I’m also stood down, and have been since March. I have enough resources tucked away to be fine with no pay until late next year. No self pity here - but the more I read the data, and ignore the headlines, the clearer the picture becomes.

We all have our opinions - some are learned, others are just plucked. Either way, there’s no need to shout down the opinions that don’t match our own.

Stay safe, enjoy the time off, and question everything! :-)