Dear Premier: Queenslanders’ letters pleading to come home

Queenslanders abroad who have been trying desperately to come home are losing hope the government will ever let them return to their families. Read their letters to Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Queenslanders abroad who have been trying desperately to come home are losing hope the government will ever let them return to their families, with international flights to Australia sparse because of limited hotel quarantine spots and regular lockdowns in here and overseas.

Frustrated at the concept NSW could be open for travel before Queensland, many stranded Aussies are calling on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to open the state borders and to allow home quarantine, especially for those double vaccinated.

Queensland residents have been told they will need to wait for the results of NSW’s seven-day home quarantine trial for vaccinated international arrivals, though experts insist there is no reason why the Sunshine State cannot commit to reopening now.

With many having copped flak for not “already having returned when they should have” and similar comments, the stranded Aussies are also appealing for Ms Palaszczuk to publicly explain the barriers continually faced by those stuck in the hope the attacks on them, especially via social media, stop.

Despite repeated attempts to get home, some Aussies stranded abroad for more than a year were caught up in the chaos of the world shutting down at the start of the pandemic, while others got stuck after the government encouraged them to take advantage of a trans-Tasman border bubble that was then suddenly shut down.

Continual roadblocks have included repeatedly cancelled flights, or not being able to get into Queensland because of an alleged lack of quarantine spots.

Seats on limited international flights – some of which are costing more than $20,000 and first stop in a third country – are not approved unless a quarantine room is first confirmed, with the process having to start again once the flight is cancelled

BUD BJORSETH – EUROPE

I live on the Sunny Coast.

I’m a commercial diver.

I work in oil and gas.

I’ve had to work overseas throughout the pandemic.

I have a wife, two kids – 3 and 5 year old.

I just want to get home and see them.

I’ve had my flights cancelled.

I’ve now only just managed to book one home on the 25th of November.

I left to go to work on the 12th of July.

Bud Bjorseth.

I wasn’t able to access any Job Keeper as I work for an overseas company.

I had no other option.

I needed to keep my job.

I’ve worked in USA and Mexico throughout the pandemic.

I’ve had Covid and I’m double vaccinated.

I’ve hotel quarantined numerous times.

How are people still struggling to get home after nearly two years of the pandemic???

The government will be the first one with their hand out to take my taxes but it’s locked me out of the country!

How fair is that.

I’ve had to keep busy working overseas as I’m can’t get any flights.

The system in place has restricted only the wealthy people who can afford business and first class to enter Australia.

Economy ticket holders get bumped off their flights.

This Covid pandemic has turned into rules for some and not for others.

Why do politicians get to quarantine at home?

What is more important about their job then mine? I thought all people with jobs were classed as essential. I’ve had to continue to work for extended periods due poor Covid management. I’ve got a flight into NSW but who knows how I’ll get across the border to Qld?

There in no clarity at all. I’ll just be happy to step foot in Australia.

Covid should have been approached federally but ScoMo didn’t want to take any responsibility so he palmed it off to the states.

And this is the mess we are in.

MACKENZIE MOORE – WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

I am an 18 year old girl who has spent the past 7 years in the Sunshine Coast, Queensland but I have since become stuck in Wellington, New Zealand.

I moved from the Sunshine Coast to New Zealand to study for one year and have since become stuck due to the border restrictions in place.

My mother, father, and little brother are all on the Sunshine Coast and I am desperate to come home.

Mackenzie Moore.

My university studies will finish on the 8th of October and just under a month from then, on the 6th of November, my halls of residence will run out and I will effectively be homeless.

I have family in Auckland that I am able to stay with for a short term, however entering and leaving Auckland at this time is near impossible due to the restrictions of their lockdown.

I have booked three flights since August for dates in September and October but all have been cancelled and the only flights that were released that were definitely scheduled to fly were sold out in minutes.

I sat online with my mother, father, uncle, and aunt to get the tickets and not one of us even managed to click on a flight.

The first flight I was scheduled to be on was September 5th and now over a month later – and two other flights cancelled – I am still in Wellington and am faced with the dilemma of finding somewhere to live after November.

Finding somewhere to live after November will be difficult as my student loan will stop funding me after my studies and I will have no income.

Adding to this stress and my urgency to get home my father was diagnosed with cancer in August.

This caused my whole family stress and was initially the reason I was looking to return home before the end of my university studies.

Knowing that Queensland is not opening the borders when Scott Morrison said Australia is supposed to, impacted my mental health severely.

Hearing that I had a chance to get home soon from the Prime Minister gave me a glimmer of hope which then was shattered when it was said that Queensland will not follow the rest of the country.

People do not understand the difficulty of the situation I am in unless they are also stuck outside of their home, not knowing when they are able to come home.

I really need to get home and see my family and provide support to my parents and little brother. Please, open the borders so I can come home.

CATHERINE MCGORAM – AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

I came over to NZ to spend time with my elderly mum, we had lost dad four years ago, and I wanted to spend time with my mother as I have lived in QLD since 2009.

However, I wasn’t sure if I would be in NZ for 6 to 12 months as it depended on my business and juggling our pandemic.

Friday October 8, is a sorrowful day for me as my flight was cancelled mid-September, and it took me two weeks, still counting, to lift myself out of absolute despair – I AM GUTTED!

I have lived six weeks in isolation due to Auckland’s lockdown, and then this news broke the camels back.

I am not a selfish person, and I truly understand the enormity that decision-makers have to go through.

Catherine McGoram (right) with her daughter, Ellana.

Yet, I am not experiencing any empathy or fairness on residents who are BLOCKED to return to work, family, and a state they love.

I have been with you for a long time and see Brisbane as my home.

I live in Brisbane close to my adult son, wife, and three children with whom I have hands-on dealings.

The two older ones go to school across the road from my property, and I love that I can support my kids with babysitting and homeschooling.

Yet the reason I AM GUTTED is my daughter is due to have her FIRST baby towards the end of November, and I am her support person in the delivery room.

My daughter is also gutted and experienced feeling blue this past weekend, knowing that I may not be there in time. It would also mean a lot if I could be at her baby shower on November 7.

Then there’s the salt in the wound that the PM wants to open the rest of the country up, yet Queensland may not at the same time.

I have admired you in the way you have protected QLD.

Yet, I think there needs to be a change of loyalty to citizens and permanent residents who feel ISOLATED and left out in the cold – I feel like I am homeless. I have moved into my friend’s property not so that I can be clear of having to give notice of vacating the rental but more for my mental health. I am living out of a suitcase. I am one of those Optimistic boring types, yet due to not planning my return – NO CERTAINTY OF DATE TO TRAVEL, I struggle to know how to breathe. It’s like being a child of a nasty divorce, not knowing which parent I will live with, as I have no choice, while others can return to the safety of their homes around the rest of the country.

And then I get the not so comforting words from friends and family as “you will be OK”, “everything for a reason”, “it’s not that bad, have a holiday while you are waiting’, and “you will get home to your daughter in time”.

The latter one takes the wind out of me every time I hear it. I know the comments come from a place of love, but they are as confused as I am that our Premier would turn your back on us.

We have been ISOLATING; we have to take a PCR test; WE are FULLY VACCINATED, we will JUMP THROUGH HOOPS. Yet we are dismissed as if we are the disease!

The biggest kick in the gut is how celebrities and sports stars on both sides of the ditch carry on as if there is no pandemic. At first, I thought this is great, as we need to be entertained – yet now IT IS so full of PRIVILEGE and so unjust that quite frankly, I am losing respect for so many people at this time. This time, we should come together and come up with fair and just ideas and get people home to their families and their lives.

Seriously, Premier, I grew to admire you as much as Jacinda when Covid broke out, and you led us well, and we are incredibly grateful how you have rallied around the support to keep Covid numbers done. Yet I plead with you to let us back in – our hearts are breaking through been rejected at the border. WE will behave and follow your lead – gosh, we are the best scholars coming from Jacinda’s rule.

GREG DONOHUE – UNITED KINGDOM

I live in the Gold Coast and work as a specialist Deep sea construction diver offshore, mainly in the UK.

All this closed borders has impacted me greatly.

I used to work month on month off.

Where as I have to do two stints at work now meaning three months away and now trying to get flights home is an absolute nightmare.

One they aren’t available two the prices are astronomical due to the fact they have left it with the airlines to fill the caps spaces.

Greg Donohue.

Flights getting bumped for no reason.

Due to my work movements changing on the vessel its especially difficult to get dates to fly as it changes all the time.

Yet I still have to pay my tax to Australia even though they are technically locking me out.

I know Anna went to Japan not long ago.

Why didn’t she have to find a flight like everyone else then she would know how bad it is.

The DFAT flights are a joke selling out in five mins.

I waited to go back to work till I was double jabbed. Why?

It doesn’t mean a thing.

Please start to think about these folk stuck overseas as you haven’t been impacted one little bit I’ve lost over 100k on lost wages and had to spend lots of time away from my wife that's harder than it normally is.

I’m just one of 60,000 cases.

Increase the caps to make it a bit easier to let your tax paying people back in.

Remember I pay your wages your taking mine away.

PHILIP BROWN – QUEENSTOWN, NEW ZEALAND

It is not OK to turn on our own.

In regards to the 10,000s of stranded Australian citizens stuck overseas, why are some Australians blaming this group for their plight? I am one of them.

I have only been in Queenstown, New Zealand.

I’ve been here since the 19th of July (three months).

Here in The South Island of New Zealand, there have been no Covid-19 cases for almost a year!

Philip Brown.

New Zealand made a sudden and overnight level-4 lockdown this year.

The government gave no travel time for nonresidents to reach Auckland which now is the only departure point back to Queensland.

All my attempts to gain one of the very few available seats home, evaporate in front of me, within seconds of trying to book.

I have no real access to my family and friends while here.

I have no New Zealand support network.

Unforeseen costs are mounting daily and I have currently accrued unnecessary extras of $6,000 while here.

So a three-week trip away is likely to turn into a more than four month enforced stay here.

I have health reasons to return as soon as possible, among other requirements. (I am double vaxxed).

Help us now.

Lift travel caps to Australia to bring us home.

Unnecessary hotel quarantining should be a thing of the past. Make home quarantining normal and only if really required.

I plead with the Queensland public to try to be understanding towards fellow citizens caught in such terrible binds elsewhere – not of their own making and suffering because of it.

CHLOE SMYTH – CANADA

I’m Australian, my family lives in Brisbane but I work in the film industry on contracts in Canada/Europe. Since the pandemic I’ve been working to arrange PPE and Covid testing to help film crews return to work safely.

I’ve missed two of my grandparents becoming terminally ill then dying over the last year, both times the flight waitlist and quarantine was too long to make it back to see them or attend their funerals (I never expected that it would happen twice in a year).

Chloe Smyth (centre) with (from right) dad Keith, sisters Margo and Ella and mum Robyn.

Among other things like missing a close friends wedding and my sister’s engagement.

I understand travel hasn’t been safe for anyone for a long time.

I understand why I missed the things I missed.

But the world is returning to functional out here (one of our producers flew to 7 different countries this month, quarantine free because he’s vaccinated and PCR testing every 72hrs) Pandemic control measures work and have been working overseas for months, it’s time.

I have a flight booked with Qantas into NSW on November 21st.

At the moment there is a very real possibility I will fly back only to be stranded on the other side of the border once I complete quarantine in NSW.

I’ve missed so much, please Queensland, let me see my family for Christmas.