We noted last week how the NSW Government hatched a treasonous plan to reserve one-third of the state’s hotel quarantine places for international students that would be flown into Australia on chartered flights and have their quarantine costs paid for by universities:
The NSW government is taking a plan to national cabinet to bring up to 1000 international students a week into Sydney starting in the new year…
The students, to arrive on charter flights, will use up nearly one-third of the state’s 3000 passenger a week limit on overseas entries…
The plan is strongly backed by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian because of the economic benefit it will bring NSW…
The NSW move was welcomed by International Education Association of Australia chief executive Phil Honeywood…
The arriving students will need to spend two weeks in quarantine, and some universities are willing to pay the $3000 quarantine cost on the students’ behalf…
This hare-brained proposal came as there were still 38,600 Australian citizens and permanent residents stranded abroad unable to get home. And for those that have returned, they have had to pay exorbitant flight fares and quarantine costs totaling over $10,000.
The Victorian Government, which recently botched hotel quarantine and seeded the state’s crippling second wave, is considering another hare-brained scheme to fly in international students:
The Victorian government is considering a proposal from the education sector to fly up to 23,000 international students into Victoria early next year and allow them to serve their quarantine period in student accommodation.
The plan, which could see students land in Melbourne as soon as January, has been put forward by a team of international education and accommodation groups aiming to bring back students without taking hotel quarantine places from returning Australians.
Victoria’s lack of action on international students has infuriated the sector, with International Education Association of Australia chief executive Phil Honeywood accusing the Andrews government of neglecting the state’s most valuable industry, worth $13.7 billion…
One of the organisations behind the plan presented to the Victorian government is Scape, the country’s largest student accommodation provider.
The company’s executive chair, Craig Carracher, said under the proposal, 23,000 international students would arrive between January and the university census date of April 30 on chartered flights paid for by accommodation companies.
He said student buildings were purpose-built facilities with one entry point and individual rooms that housed a “compliant” cohort of international students.
However, this plan was rejected by NSW:
“I’m not happy to see the quarantine system move outside of the hotels at this stage. I think that would be too high risk,” [NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian] said.
“That’s just NSW, I know other states do have other arrangements. And so for that reason, the cap of 3000 [arrivals per week] is not going to change in NSW.”
Victoria’s quarantine failures prove comprehensively that contracting-out quarantining arrangements to the private sector is a recipe for disaster and would place the state at risk of seeding a destructive third virus wave.
International education lobbyists like Phil Honeywood are displaying classic moral hazard behaviour with this proposal, as they have throughout the pandemic.
The industry stands to privatise the financial benefits from international students’ return, while the costs and risks are borne by taxpayers and the general community. It’s a classic heads I win, tails you lose situation developed by the industry for the industry. It should be rejected outright.
Melbournians suffered through 22 weeks of hard lockdowns this year and have sacrificed too much to eradicate the virus, only for the greedy international education industry and Victorian Government to put it all at risk.
More generally, no quarantine places should be set aside for international students and migrants until every single Australian citizen and permanent resident stranded abroad has been repatriated. Nor should students and migrants have their airfares and quarantine costs subsidised when actual Australians are being forced to wear the full costs.
When foreign nationals carry more weight than returning Australians, you know the whole political system has been corrupted.
