200,000 Aussies return from overseas to seek the comfort of home

A total of 208,448 citizens flew into Australia from overseas in the past three months, compared with 2.5 million for the same period in 2019.

More than 200,000 Australian citizens returned from overseas in the past three months as the corona­virus pandemic took hold, with the most people, nearly 30,000, leaving the US.

One-quarter of those Aust­ralians flew back from the US in the two weeks following George Floyd’s death on May 25, which sparked mass Black Lives Matter protests and unrest.

Department of Home Affairs data shows the top five countries from which Australian citizens returned­ between March 17 and June 9 were the US (27,336 ­people), New Zealand (24,189), Indo­nesia (22,356), Singapore (19,004) and Qatar (18,452).

A total of 208,448 citizens flew into Australia from overseas in that time, compared with 2.5 million for the same period last year.

US and foreign policy experts attributed the higher number of returns from America to the country’s coronavirus response and the start of summer holidays, but were careful not to draw a link to Floyd’s death and the protests.

Floyd, a black man, died in Minneapolis while a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove said Aust­ralians were used to seeing the US as the global epicentre of power, not the global epicentre of disease.

 

“At the moment, compared to the US, Australia looks like the land of milk and honey,’’ Dr Fullilove said.

“COVID was a stress test for the US and, with 110,000 dead, it looks like it’s failing that stress test.

“We’ve seen all sorts of frailties in US society this year. It’s not just all down to President (Donald) Trump’s unimpressive response to COVID, it’s also the hyper-­partisan political culture, the dysfunctional federal system, the lack of state capacity, the lack of a universa­l healthcare system.

“All of those things make the US a less ­attractive place to live.”

United States Studies Centre chief executive Simon Jackman said it was an open question as to whether the “uptick” in Aust­ralians flying back from the US in the past couple of weeks was part of a normal “summer bump” or whether it was helped by the final government-facilitated Qantas and Virgin flights that left Los Angeles last weekend.

“The 27,000 (Australians who returned from the US since mid-March) represents a little over a half of the work visas issued in the previous year,” Professor Jackman said.

“My best guess is most of the Australians working or living in the US are still there. People are heartbroken and they look back at Australia and they just can’t believ­e the success we’ve had.”

The US was only the fourth-most-popular country from which Australians returned between March 17 and June 9 last year, with 286,612 citizens coming home.

The highest number during that period returned from Singapore (356,415), followed by Indon­esia (306,176) and New Zealand (295,041), with Hong Kong (150,523) coming in fifth.

On March 17, as domestic and global cases of COVID-19 cases skyrocketed, Foreign Minister Marise Payne urged all Australians overseas who wanted to come home to do so “as soon as possible by commercial means”.