Covid-19: Desperate Aussie expats eye a ‘boatpeople’ return from Indonesia

With no other way out of Indonesia, which is in the grips of a deadly Covid-19 surge, a group of Australians is now contemplating the ‘boatpeople’ route home.

Brendan Nuir on board his Phinisi transport vessel, Embaku. Picture: Johannes P. Christo

For decades, the ocean trip from Indonesia to Australia has been largely the preserve of the desperate and stateless, but with no other way out of a country in the grips of a deadly Covid-19 surge, a group of Australians is now contemplating the “boatpeople” route home.

Lombok-based tourism operator Brendan Nuir has fielded dozens of inquiries from Australian expatriates willing to pay $3500 a person for a 67-hour trip from Kupang in West Timor to Darwin in his 22m traditional Indonesian Phinisi transport vessel, Embaku, since posting a flyer on Australian expat chat groups this week.

The 36-year-old former West Australian goldminer decided to gauge interest in the trip after putting his name down for private charter flights to Australia along with hundreds of others, only to watch the price of one-way tickets treble to $10,600 a person amid a bidding war for planes among charter companies.

Well over a million people have fallen ill in Indonesia since early June and tens of thousands have died as the country’s under-resourced health system struggles to cope with a fresh Covid surge fuelled by the Delta variant.

With the Indonesian vaccination rollout also painfully slow — about 6 per cent of people have been fully vaccinated — and foreigners at the back of the queue, more than 10,000 expatriates have left the country in July alone.

Thousands of Australians remain stranded, with no commercial seats on Garuda until January, Singapore banning transit routes through Changi, and ­Australia halving arrivals caps.

“Last year, I had people trying to charter the boat privately to make the trip to Australia but it was too hard to get permission from Indonesia,” Mr Nuir said.

This time, he has all the Indonesian permits he needs to leave the country by boat. “We’re just waiting to see if Darwin is going to give us permission to come and go. That’s the only thing holding us back,” he said. “Everything online says it’s possible to get to Darwin by boat and then quarantine at Howard Springs. It just doesn’t say how long it will take before the boat is allowed to leave again.”

Mr Nuir said he hoped to run multiple trips before the monsoon began late in the year.

An Australian Border Force spokesman said Australian citizens or residents arriving by small boat must give at least 48 hours notice for a trip taking up to 72 hours and abide by biosecurity rules, while all non-Australian crew must hold appropriate visas or travel exemptions.

“Beyond that, arrival caps, quarantine availability and on-­arrival health processes are a matter for the relevant state or territory,” he said. “In relation to the Northern Territory, there are specific health and quarantine ­requirements that apply to passengers and crew.”

Among those willing to pay for a berth is Mathew Connelly, seconded by his Australian company late last year to work on the Indonesian government-backed Moto GP project in Lombok, never imagining he would end up seriously contemplating the refugee’s path back to his own country.

He is on 48 wait-lists for flights to Australia, where his six-year-old daughter is due to have an operation next month for a bone disorder.

He believes Mr Nuir’s Embaku could be his best chance of seeing his family this year.