#strandedaussies

[strandedaustralian]

If you’re upset about Novak not being allowed into Australia, you’ve not been paying attention

THIS. THIS is the thing the global community decides to pick up on and highlight Australia’s inhumanity about. A privileged tennis player who was allowed into the country last year, despite publicly flaunting covid health and safety by organising a tennis tournament, while over 40,000 stranded Australians (including myself) were not allowed back into their home countries. A privileged tennis player who is spending a short amount of time in the same hotel where asylum seekers have been forced to spend years in detention, with zero media coverage. People are saying that this incident will highlight the abhorrent way that Australia has treated its own citizens during COVID (#strandedaussies) or asylum seekers for decades. It won’t. People will move on and forget. I’ve seen non-Australians praise the Australian Government (do even a second of Googling to see how corrupt Prime Minister Scott Morrison is, not just through COVID but his entire career in politics), and I’ve seen tennis fans defend Novak Djokovic (he expected privileges because he received them last year. Your ability to hit a ball does not mean you get more rights than other people). This is more than tennis. There are more important things than tennis (and this is coming from someone who adored the tennis, who attended 3/4 grand slams, played competitively - until 1200 tennis players and their entourages were allowed into the country last year for the Australian Open before actual citizens were, while actual citizens died trying to get back into the country. And almost every. single. one. came in without question. Imagine what good they could have done with their positions by raising awareness of the double standards? Stranded Australians might not have died, might have been home, might have been able to see their families for the last time, if the predatory class had a moral backbone. So before you rush to defend Novak, or the Australian Government, take in the big picture. And don’t look away when the issue passes on. Stranded Australians will still be stranded, asylum seekers will still be locked up, and Novak will still be earning millions of dollars regardless of what happens.

[strandedaustralian]

Djokovic gets Aussie Open vaccine exemption

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic said on Tuesday he would defend his Australian Open title at Melbourne Park this month after receiving a medical exemption from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Since March 2020, onshore Australians have been telling stranded Aussies that they simply should have “come home sooner”. Pray tell, how does one “come home sooner” when the official advice was to seek shelter and bunker down, when flights cost up to 20x the original price because the government has put restrictions on how many people can enter the country, when you pack up your entire life and sell your house and ship your pets back to Australia and then have your flight cancelled at the boarding gate, when you get vaccinated with the only vaccines available in the country you’re living in but those vaccines are “approved” in Australia - but non-citizen anti-vaxxers can enter the country TWICE on exemptions. This isn’t a “public health” decision. This is money-driven. Pure and simple. This is driven by a government who don’t give two shits about their overseas citizens, or even what the value of holding an Australian citizenship means. This is driven by a docile and complicit public who spent two years telling their fellow overseas citizens to “rot and die overseas” and calling us diseased, while in the same breath throwing enormous tantrums when they couldn’t host football games. This is driven by celebrities who care more about themselves, money, and fame than they do about human rights. This is driven by a media frenzy who continues to spread moral panics, further stoking the fear of the public. I’ve tried to be somewhat restrained in my posts on Tumblr (as opposed to my other social media), but I am beyond the point of furious. Every single day I wake up, I hate Australia a little bit more. Today, the Australian public screams to the high heavens about the cost and queues of covid testing and how unfair it is that Novak Djokovic is allowed an exemption to the Australian Open. Where the fuck were you last year?! A year ago today, I was stranded in London in between my second and third flight cancellations back to Australia. I paid 3x the price of a normal flight to get back and then paid an extra $3000 for mandatory hotel quarantine (all for “public health” - but please, continue to whinge about spending $10 on a covid test). I watched as the government said there wasn’t room for me to come back (or 40, 000 other stranded aussies) but they found room for 1,200 tennis players and their entourages for the Australian Open. I watched as the onshore public told me to “shut up and stop complaining” because I was jobless, broke, depressed, but they cheered as the tennis went ahead. You accept the standard you walk past. Australians don’t know a fraction of the pain they inflicted on stranded aussies. But you were silent for too long, and now you get a small taste of what it’s like to have the burden of public health placed on you, to be valued less than a non-citizen celebrity. And I can’t say I give a damn.

[strandedaustralian]

Reconnect Australia on Twitter

“#strandedaussies stand in silence outside @AusHouseLondon today to mourn 18 months of border closures 💔 #ReconnectAustralia https://t.co/jwaAjoZa4C”

So proud of the stranded Australian community in London making a stand and taking to the media over the weekend. 18 months into the COVID pandemic and things have only deteriorated for the Australian citizens still abandoned by their country across the world.

Arrival cap numbers into Australia are now the lowest they have ever been. Singapore Air has stopped flying into Australia entirely, resulting in mass cancellations. Stranded Australians have reported experiencing up to 14 flight cancellations since Australia implemented its cruel arrival caps. Of course, that hasn’t stopped thousands of non-citizen sports players, elite business people, and celebrities being allowed in without issue.

This is a problem resulting from every level of government, across the political spectrum. Both left and right wing politicians at federal and state levels have failed stranded Australians.

Every day I log onto Facebook and look at the dozens of stranded Australian groups from around the world. I see dozens of messages of people desperate and hopeless. For the last 18 months, I have seen people post about having flights cancelled, about having to watch their loved one die or their funeral via Zoom because they can’t get a flight back into Australia, about being told by the Australian embassies in their country that they can’t help them and they should go find a homeless shelter, about contemplating ending their lives because they can’t find a way out. I watch these brave people tell their stories to the media, trying to find a grain of empathy or consideration for human rights in the Australian Government. Sometimes the media pressure helps and they get a prioritised flight home. But they do so at the cost of incredible abuse by the Australia public. Maybe the tide is starting to change over the last few months, but you look at the comments section of any news footage or article about stranded Australians and they are filled with hateful words, of xenophobia, of a complete lack of empathy that runs counter to the so-called ‘mateship’ lauded by this country.

The “success” of Australia’s pandemic response was based on the sacrificing of it’s citizens, of it’s human rights, of it’s morals. Stranded Australians are exhausted but they continue to fight. As a former stranded Australian myself, I fight alongside you.

[ataswegianabroad]

@abcnews_au reached out to briefly discuss home quarantine with me, and what it means for the thousands of Aussies stuck overseas. ✈️🇦🇺 Link in bio and below: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/newsradio/national-cabinet-to-discuss-home-quarantine-plans/13546268 #Auspol #nationalcabinet #strandedaussies https://www.instagram.com/p/CT55uJbrVu1OKkrfcg7HGor4_YRfcJCeL6_RWk0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[strandedaustralian]

Ed Sheeran arrives in Australia

The singer has flown to Australia to mourn the death of music legend Michael Gudinski.

So let me get this right, Ed Sheeran, a non-citizen celebrity, is able to enter and leave Australia to attend the funeral of a man he was not related to, but Stranded Australians are denied the ability to enter OR leave their country to not only attend the funerals of their family members but also see them in their final dying moments?

Appalling double standards yet again from the Australian Government. I also question why so many celebrities and sports people are able to enter Australia when #strandedaussies are a global humanitarian crisis, yet extremely few of these people have actually spoken up about and raised awareness of #strandedaussies. If you’re not calling out injustice and benefitting from the privilege of having the money to enter Australia (despite it’s so-called closed borders), then you’re complicit.

[strandedaustralian]

To the tune of, “I Still Call Australia Home”. Written in September 2020 and still far too relevant now. Tens of thousands of Australians remain stranded overseas. The Australian Government does not need to bring #strandedaussies home - they need to stop being the obstacles in the way of their return.

[strandedaustralian]

Tennis is more important than Australian citizens’ lives

Yesterday, Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, ceased all international flights from landing in Melbourne for the next 5 days, with talks of ceasing these flights indefinitely. Hundreds of #strandedaussies will have their flights cancelled last minute and will be left homeless. This is a political tactic that keeps working because Australian citizens are terrified of COVID and the fear mongering by the media and the government directs all that fear at stranded Australians. The Australian Open will continue ahead, just without crowds. But this is not good enough. It should NEVER have been prioritised over the return of Stranded Australians. Daniel Andrews promised just last week that arrival cap numbers would go back to what they were in December. He backed out on that promise. He said that the quarantine spaces made available to host the 1200 tennis players and their entourages would be used to bring more Stranded Australians home. That was clearly a lie. The Australian Open is going ahead, all while Australian citizens are dying overseas. The Australian Government has only ever been motivated by two things during the COVID crisis: money and political votes. The lives of stranded Australians mean nothing.

[strandedaustralian]

Returning Australians have to pay up to $15,000 these days to return to their home from overseas. And then $3000 for quarantine. And then $1400 for access to fresh air. These Australians have already been hit hard and many have lost their jobs due to COVID. How do they find the money to return to their own country (a basic human right), complete quarantine (mandatory), and get access to their basic human right of fresh air? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-19/hotel-quarantine-guests-charged-up-to-1400-extra-for-balcony/13067440