I will not shut up about this. Australia's borders aren't actually closed - those with access to government, both Australians and foreigners, can come and go. If nothing else this is bad enough for its potential to encourage corruption and influence-peddling.

The travel restrictions on the 99% were an appropriate temporary response, but lots of time has passed now and we need appropriate longer term measures to manage international travel rather than general bans with exemptions for a privileged elite

The general outbound travel ban certainly should have long since gone - people can leave on an understanding they'll pay for quarantine when returning.

Then for inbound travellers we need revamped quarantine arrangements, with increased capacity that doesn't rely on expensive city hotels and can be set up with assumption a quarantine scheme will be needed for maybe a couple of years.

and freed up capacity by introducing and tolerating a risk-based level of quarantine requirements based on country of origin. No quarantine for arrivals from negligible risk places like NZ, self-quarantine from low risk countries, etc.

Even on the most optimistic vaccine rollout, we're not going to be able to return to risk-free international travel for a couple of years, so we need to implement a policy regime that can work for a couple of years and enable travel rather than unsustainable & unfair general bans