Australians stranded amid the world’s biggest COVID-19 lockdown in India are furious with the Australian government for ignoring their pleas to be airlifted home.
A concerted group effort headed by a few expatriates has seen four more flights organised to bring people home following the success of an initial charter flight using Indonesia’s Lion Air from Delhi to Melbourne on April 12. The carrier will also be used for the next group of flights from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
The latter two flights will leave on March 19 and 20 respectively, at a cost of $2200 per person.
Yet Canberra has failed to organise any flights, despite having almost 7000 Australians in India registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). There are fears that India, the world’s second most populous country, may yet see a coronavirus catastrophe, particularly in the major cities of Mumbai and Delhi.
“It’s disappointing the government does not care about our wellbeing,” read one post on an Australians in India WhatsApp group. “Our government has been proven to be totally useless so far,” read another.
The Australian reports today that India is top of DFAT’s priority list for returning stranded Australians from overseas.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended the country’s lockdown, initially set at three weeks, to May 3. A number of states had instituted lockdowns ahead of his original announcement. The death toll in India has officially reached 377, with at least 11,000 infections, though the country has tested relatively few people.
The lockdowns are creating headaches for Australians trying to get to major cities to catch flights home. Many travellers heading for these international airports have to cross at least one, possibly several state borders. The Indian government is arresting people who travel by private car, and with domestic flights cancelled, charter buses have to be organised by people at a local level.
There is also the issue of exclusion zones being implemented in a growing number of COVID-19 hotspots across India, more than 250 of which are now in the Mumbai alone.
The Australian High Commission (AHC) is issuing travel passes but some people have found this is not enough, with greater permission required by some states for transit.
A number of Australians in India who spoke to Crikey said that the AHC’s advice had been “very confusing over recent weeks, at one stage advising people to book fares on planes that were later cancelled due to airline imperatives or the government lockdown”.
In a self-congratulatory Facebook post on April 13, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said: “The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra and posts in many countries are working hard to assist Australians overseas to return”.
The short list of repatriations she is now taking credit for includes “444 Australians on a private charter flight from India for which our High Commission provided extensive logistical support and advice, and obtained necessary approvals in complex circumstances”.
This is despite DFAT clearly saying only last week that there were no charter flights available out of India, that it does not “endorse” the flights and even pointing out Lion Air’s safety record.
An Australian tourist helping to organise a bus to travel from the state of Goa to Mumbai 600km north said he was “hoping for some assistance from the AHC”, but the commission seems to have “not included the Consulate General in Mumbai in the loop” about the new flight.
The Morrison government’s efforts to help Australians stranded offshore have been embarrassed by a raft of other nations helping their citizens around the world — including Germany, which is conducting a €50 million program of repatriation; the United Kingdom, which has four flights to Goa this week alone; as well as Finland, Bulgaria and many others
The government of Poland has coordinated use of national carrier LOT Polish Airlines for 388 flights to bring 55,000 people home from around the world. Poland have also permitted national of other European nations to board its planes and to collect their nationals once planes have landed in Europe.
Only a handful of government backed flights have been organised by DFAT to repatriate Australians including three from South America — where there are far fewer Australians than in other hot spots.
Unlike may other countries, including significantly-less-wealthy Brazil and India, the Australian government is forcing its citizens to pay for their flights, even to the extent of providing loans to those that do not have resources for the $2000-plus fares.
The government has not fully co-opted either Qantas or Virgin Australia. Both airlines are seeking massive taxpayer-funded bailouts. Reports have suggested that Qantas has struggled to find staff willing to man charter planes due to the risk of crew catching COVID-19 on recent flights.
Meanwhile, Crikey understands that Canberra has been in negotiations with Qatar Airways — a partner in the One World alliance of airlines, where Qantas is founding member — for flights from India to Doha and then onto Australia.
DFAT continues to advise that “the government strongly urges all Australians who wish to come home and who have access to commercial or charter flights, to do so now, without delay”.
The problem is now, from India and an increasing number of destinations popular with Australians such as Thailand, there are no flights to catch — only charters that the government appears more reticent than most to help organise.
A well written article, Michael, accurately summarising the situation. We are in our fourth week overlooking Delhi airport, watching all other nationalities repatriated over our time.p here. The federal government (DFAT, High Commission) lack a transparent plan and coherent communication strategy. People are in melt down on social media here about the lack of action to date. How could Simon Quinn organise a private Lions charter to Melbourne in a week and the Federal Government can arrange NOTHING in four weeks. And counting.
That’s what happens when we have “small” government with a shrunken public service staffed by public servants who are subjected to constant bashing, scorn, wage restraint and derision.
It is not the normal role of DFAT to organise flights for Australians – we subsidise Qantas (remember when Qantas was publicly owned?) and Virgin to do that. And those parts of DFAT that used to place people around the world, such as AusAID did, have now been closed and their experience and expertise was first decried and then lost. (Only yesterday Senator Hanson was rattling on about the millions of our dollars supposedly spent on aid.)
And it’s a bit gratuitous to describe Minister Payne’s statement as self-congratulatory. I have a neighbour who is a DFAT employee. Working from home, with a bloody hopeless NBN that constantly buffers and having to access a system whose security features were not designed for working from home, my neighbour is “working hard” and all hours to help Australians stranded across different time zones. The person was not recruited to DFAT because she knew about flight times and airports and how to get people off cruises and on to planes when they are virus affected.
It has been the mantra of the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison regimes that government should be small and get out of the way of “efficient” business by leaving it to manage such emergencies as we now face. When this is over we should not consider not only the consequences of relying on other countries for such essentials as masks and PPE but the true effects of shrinking government to levels of incompetence.
Interesting read, MJM. And typo free! You’re right, of course. Watch them compound their shortcomings through ‘the need for budget restraint’ post lockdown.
Our politicians – and our highly politicised internal repression organisations – are as happy to treat citizens in difficulties abroad as viciously as they treat boat refugees.
Contempt for Australians in need abroad comes very naturally to Australian politicians.
Look to their indifference to Indonesia’s murder of the Balibo Six, or the desire to find al-Quaeda recruits like Hicks and Habib guilty regardless of evidence, or the deportation by Immigration of Australian citizens, or citizenship-stripping as a manhood extender, or the nearly successful entrapment of (refugee footballer on holiday) Hakeem el-Araibi courtesy of the Federal Police and Bahrain, or the abandonment of the families of Australian ISIS fighters, or the two Australians murdered by American drone in Yemen, or the freedom given to the U.S. to pursue Assange for practicing press freedom.
In contrast to the taxpayer billions eagerly given away to wealthy transnationals or the private health industry, Rightist ideologues are quick to thunder ”moral hazard” as a reason for abandonment. If we help our people abroad, shock, horror, they might come to expect it!
Who’d have though anyone with no power and limited funds abroad should think of relying on Australia’s government for help in a crisis? After all, they hate doing so for us here!
Geez did anyone proof this article? Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors galore.
Once again, very disappointed at the tendency to use ‘Canberra’ as shorthand for the Federal Government. It is lazy journalism, and I was disinclined to read any further. Yes, you guessed it, I am a Canberra resident, and proud of it. We are a living, breathing entity: a collection of people working in a variety of professions and trades. Canberrans have heart, soul, passion, humour, empathy…I could go on! You could probably find 10 different opinions for every 10 Canberrans you spoke to, but I imagine we’d all agree: we are NOT the Federal Government, and please don’t use our name as shorthand for this!
Well said. I too am a Canberran. I have taken to calling out all those who use the name of the national capital to refer to the federal government. I started doing so in January after a neighbour had an email from a (now ex-) friend in another state saying Canberra deserved the terrible smoke and particle pollution we were suffering. “All in this together?” I constantly shout at the PM who suggests we live in some kind of bubble that exists only in his doublespeak.