India ban tests our moral and medical responsibilities

Working on citizen-state engagement in developing democracies over more than 15 years, I am regularly reminded of my luck in winning the sperm lottery of Australian birth. It is only pure chance that I am not stuck overseas. Peter van Onselen’s reference to the social contract (“Making criminals of Aussies trying to get home shames us all”, 3/5) for Australians trying to get home is significant. Since Jean Jacques Rousseau coined this term, it has taken centuries for intangibles like trust and legitimacy to manifest in Western democracies. This trust in our governments is foundational to living in a democracy, but in little over a year the Morrison government is eroding our trust in the value of what it means to be an Australian citizen.

For how long can Australians put up with this treatment of our fellow citizens? How apathetic and entitled have we become that we ignore their plight? The simple fact is that this is not a border issue, it is an issue of poor governance. COVID is no longer about emergency management through long-term border closures. It is an endemic disease that needs to be managed through sound, medium to long-term governance, not fear-inducing, stop-gap measures that satisfy the majority over the poor luck of the minority and mask poor governance of quarantine practices.

Sue Cant, Blairgowrie, Vic

It’s not often, in fact it’s rarely the case, that I agree with Peter van Onselen. But I am in complete accord with his views that the government’s banning Australians from returning home from India is unconscionable. That Australian citizens can be criminalised, and punished so harshly for doing so, I see as morally reprehensible.

Phil Beck, East Victoria Park, WA

There are 9000 Australian citizens including 600 classified as vulnerable stranded in COVID-19 devastated India. Why can’t the federal government arrange to have them tested, cleared, flown home to Australia and isolated in our hotel quarantine system? Abandoning our fellow Australian citizens and threatening such punitive action in desperate circumstances is potentially illegal, an abuse of human rights and extremely unethical.

Kevin Burke, Sandringham, Vic

During the last year we have all at times had to obey restrictions on movement, on health experts advice, to keep the virus at bay. Blocking Australians from returning from India is just another necessary requirement and, as I understand, temporary. We were all subject to fines. Imprisonment may be a call too far, but there has to be some penalty for those trying to circumvent the rules to not enter the country from a place that poses danger to us all.

Sheila Knight, Malvern, Vic

Message to all those outraged at the government’s decision to prevent people who have been living in India from flying into Australia: where was your outrage when the premiers of Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia banned people from entering their state? Is this selective outrage perhaps?

K. MacDermott, Binalong, NSW

Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah’s warning is timely (“Quarantine flaws put us on Covid tightrope for winter”, 3/5), because every day Australians are becoming unwisely complacent to the danger of another COVID-19 wave as winter approaches. People are no longer social distancing, or sanitising their hands as they enter shops and the like. This is why Britain suffered a drastic wave of coronavirus last winter. Governments have kept us safe, sometimes causing much emotional pain, but it was necessary to save lives. This is no mild flu; doctors are now finding complications in patients who were not seriously infected and, with the virus now dangerously mutating, we can only hope vaccination is efficacious for our citizens and the world.

Lesley Beckhouse, Queanbeyan, NSW

The “Human Biosecurity Emergency Period” declared by the PM in March last year meant all the measures taken in response to COVID-19 were exempted from regulatory review. As if that wasn’t dictatorial enough, for the government to now pull the shutters down with 38 different Freedom Of Information bans on documents involving border closures, lockdowns and restrictions, is completely unacceptable (“Outrageous lockdown secrecy slammed”, 3/5). Good on Adam Creighton for bringing this subterfuge to our attention.

Mandy Macmillan, Singleton, NSW