10th Nov 2020 – Senate Motions - Covid-19; International Travel - Bring Australians home

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Tasmanian Senator Anne Urquhart (Labor), which means it succeeded. Motions like these don't make any legal changes on their own but they are politically influential because they represent the will of the Senate.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the Australian Government is responsible for borders, quarantine, and assisting Australians in jeopardy and stranded overseas,

(ii) since the Prime Minister capped international passenger arrivals on 13 July 2020, the number of stranded Australians overseas has risen dramatically to more than 34,000,

(iii) the United Kingdom Government says that Australia is the only country in the world to have actively restricted its citizens returning,

(iv) on 5 October 2020, the Senate called the Government to take urgent steps to help every stranded Australian return home by:

(A) increasing the number of permitted arrivals under international flight caps through using Commonwealth resources to increase quarantine capacity,

(B) stopping price gouging by airlines flying into Australia, and

(C) putting all options on the table to return stranded Australians, especially from places like the United Kingdom, India, Philippines and Lebanon—including charter flights, and

(v) the Morrison Government did not announce any funding or initiative as part of the 2020 Federal Budget to respond to the Senate's motion, and has no plan to help every stranded Australian return home; and

(b) calls on the Morrison Government to bring our stranded Australians home by Christmas, as the Prime Minister promised he would do.