ScoMo’s humanity for cruise passengers is ‘right’

Prime Minister Scott Morrison stepped up on Sunday and showed the strong moral leadership we need of our leaders in a time of unprecedented crisis.

Scott Morrison stepped up and showed the strong moral leadership we need of our leaders in a crisis on Sunday.

He said the MS Artania cruise ship was allowed to dock in WA with seven of its passengers confirmed to have the coronavirus and two more suspected cases because it was the “right thing” to do.

The first of four Condor Airlines charter flights arriving from Frankfurt in Germany via Phuket in Thailand to repatriate passengers from the coronavirus-infected cruise ship MS Artania which docked in Fremantle harbour on Friday. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Wainwright

He needs to be able to hold his head up and tell foreign governments exactly what our values are, even as his own states have adopted a send the cruise ships to sea and forget the deadly consequences policy, including here in NSW.

“It is important that Australia does the right thing about those who have fallen into our care to ensure that I can say with great moral authority (to other countries) that Australians are doing the right thing, and we would ask you to do the right thing,” he said.

That is exactly what Japan did when it hospitalised sick Australians from the Diamond Princess. And it is not what is happening to the Australian passengers sailing with four dead on the Zaandam searching for permission to dock.

Of course handling cruise ships as they come into port needs to be done sensibly, not in the disastrous manner employed by the state and federal governments which allowed passengers on the Ruby Princess to disembark unchecked.

More than 170 cases in NSW can be tracked to that debacle.

Context is still important. More than 2000 virus suffers have arrived by air and almost 500 by ship nationwide.

NSW is looking at early parole for some prisoners because of the virus yet takes a hard line on cruise liners and the thousands of foreign crew sitting on ships off the NSW coast right now, where they may fall sick or even die.

Let that sink in — freedom for criminals but those on cruise ships condemned to death.

Going on a cruise is not a crime and getting caught in a global pandemic was certainly not part of the itinerary.

It is time the state governments listened to the Prime Minister.