Industry furious at border comments

Industry furious at border comments

SUGGESTIONS by Health Department Chief Brendan Murphy that international travel is unlikely to resume until 2022 (TD yesterday) have attracted widespread attention, with the travel and tourism sector livid at the thoughtless impact his words have had on confidence.

Asked about the likelihood that international borders would reopen this year, Murphy told ABC News Breakfast that “the answer is probably no” – prompting a flurry of negative mainstream headlines.

However it’s not all bad news, with Channel 9’s Today show this morning seeing former ALP leader Bill Shorten saying “I think we’re going to have to help bail out our travel agents”.

A number of Travel Daily readers have expressed their outrage at Murphy’s comments, including this opinion piece from an anonymous industry leader which we are reprinting in full.

Want to join the conversation? Email your contributions to feedback@traveldaily.com.au.

I am over this pandemic.

I am over the hyperbole and politicking at all our expense.

The comments yesterday by Brendan Murphy about international travel were damaging, irresponsible and confounding.

We are currently being encouraged, pressured – and some would say, cornered – into taking a vaccine whose very effectiveness is still being debated.

To only then be told that we still won’t be allowed in or out of the country because they do not know whether the vaccine will stop the spread of the virus is just ludicrous.

Would it be appropriate to mention here that the Secretary of the Department of Health does not write policies and that this is the domain of our PM?

Yet ScoMo has shown time and time again that he, nor his elected government, are in charge of the asylum and that the states are the ones running around like Nurse Ratchet.

Almost 12 months on and we are still awaiting a single definition on what a ‘hotspot’ is.

The constant opening and closing of internal borders has bordered on the absurd and has left the tourism sector in tatters.

There is still a reluctance to help the industry that they are suffocating and one must jump through hoops for any so called assistance past the end of Mar.

And these recent comments by Professor Murphy have just added more fuel to a raging fire.

So why are we not using available technology to allow people to quarantine at home?

By all means, anyone who flouts the rules should be sent off to a camp or hotel (not of their choosing).

Why hasn’t our Government paid to repatriate its own citizens? These repatriation flights could have been paid for using the money saved from having to pay for hotel quarantine in the first place (prior to this cost being unfairly passed onto the traveller).

Even now it would help those still stranded overseas to pay the jacked up air ticket prices.

I will not even enter into a debate on the legalities of holding one’s citizens captive.

I mean it’s not as if we are not allowing the rich, the famous, those who smell of liniment to enter and leave of their own free will – is it?

And who came up with 14-days quarantine? Even NSW Health had to do a backflip and change their own recommendation from 14 to 21 days. Yet most of their data is based on interviews rather than a follow-up test to determine whether the virus has dissipated.

It’s all a numbers game which helps with perception and dare I say re-elections.

At the end of the day, I just want to be both physically and mentally healthy.

Yet I am over all the throwaway lines that continue to cause irrefutable and chronic damage to our livelihoods.

And I am over all the disinformation and games being played to the detriment of our industry.

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Source: traveldaily