Stranded Australian expats go to United Nations to appeal treatment

Arrival caps 'breached their right to return to the land of their birth or citizenship', the UN court heard. Photo / File

Australia has been hit with a United Nations complaint and Prime Minister Scott Morrison dubbed a "moral vacuum" over its treatment of stranded Australians and their inability to return home.

A number of Australians who have been left "stranded" overseas since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic have taken their complaints straight to the top, after failing to negotiate a safe passage home with the Australian government's "extreme restrictions".

All have started vaccination programs while some are fully vaccinated and have the help of world renowned human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC.

The complaint was filed on Monday at the UN's Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, claiming the government "has arbitrarily breached their right to return to the land of their birth or citizenship", according to a statement by Stranded Aussies, the group of volunteers affected by the flight caps.

"We think that it is of great international significance that Australia is the only western democracy that does not have a bill of human rights that protects the rights of Australians to return home."

The group includes a volcanologist from Melbourne who has been trying to return to Australia since March last year, a microbiologist who lives in New Jersey but wants to return home to Tasmania with his Australian wife and a family from the UK who "want to be closer to loved ones".

"We are just a group of ordinary Aussies who have been left high and dry by an unfeeling government, and we are supporting these cases because they demonstrate how badly Australia is treating its own citizens," spokeswoman Deborah Tellis said.

"The government is responsible for quarantine and has a duty to allow its citizens to return and enter into it — it should force the states to admit us and provide for them to increase their quarantine facilities. What it must not do is to breach international law."

Nearly 500,000 Australians have returned to the country since the beginning of the pandemic but there are still more than 36,000 Australians who remain overseas due to arrival caps.

State and territory governments use these caps to manage "pressure" quarantine facilities.

The government says these measures "are temporary and will be reviewed".

In figures released to the Senate from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) last week, 4860 of the 36,206 Australian overseas registered to return home are described as vulnerable.

Tens of thousans of Australians remain stuck overseas by arrival caps: Pieter den Heten's map project showed some of these. Photo / Supplied

India has the largest numbers of Australians who have said they want to come home, followed by the UK, the US, Philippines and Thailand. Some have written an open letter to "every one living in Australia".

"The damage it is doing to many stranded Australians is terrible – they are unable to get back to see dying parents or sick relatives, unable to return to take up jobs or start university courses," Ms Tallis said.

"By going to the UN, we hope to highlight what an unfeeling government Morrison heads."

Of the 20 repatriation flights announced by the government earlier this year, 12 have arrived while the rest are due to be completed by April 17.

Victoria announced it would accept international flights again from April 8 but the problems persist, with several international airlines, including Singapore Airlines, recently complaining over the lack of information and operational challenges of flying into the country due to the ever-changing border rules.

Stranded Aussies have blamed the caps for preventing them from returning and say they have made efforts and are "willing to comply with all necessary public health measures, including fourteen days quarantine in Australia".

Moral vacuum: Stranded Aussies struck back at MP Morrison for his lack of support. Photo / Diego Opatowski

Their petitions claim Australia has breached the UN's International Covenant "because they have no effective remedy — they cannot go to court to require the government to live up to its obligations to permit its citizens to return home".

DFAT secretary Frances Adamson told Senate estimates last week officials had done "exceptional work" getting Australians home during the pandemic but DFAT's Assistant Secretary Lynette Wood conceded she could not predict when all stranded Australians would finally return home.

"Just be clear, the cup keeps refilling," Ms Wood said.

"It's not like it's a finite number and the door has closed. More and more people have registered."

But in their claim to the UN, the Australians say the government has "prevented tens of thousands of citizens from 'calling Australia home'" and that "the right to return to one's native land is regarded as fundamental in international law".

They have said that all they ask for is for "Australia to provide enough robust Quarantine capacity to allow enough of us home per week, so that the number of us stranded actually moves downward, and that quarantine is able to be booked alongside a flight, so we don't get cancelled at the whim of the airlines trying to juggle the incoming flight caps." They also called for more quarantine space and a "booking system to reliably be able to get home — that's it."

Morrison told reporters he intended to get "as many people as possible home, if not all of them, by Christmas", while Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said he wanted to "ensure that every Australian who wants to come home is home by Christmas".

And yet, tens of thousands of Australians remain stuck overseas as life here slowly returns to normal. In fact the number of "vulnerable" Australians has risen since the PM's Christmas promise.

"International law recognises the strong bond between individuals and their homeland and no respectable government would impose travel caps to prevent, for over a year, its citizens from returning if they are prepared to do quarantine," Geoffrey Robertson QC, who has advised the petitioners, said.

"Both our political parties have, in the past, done what they can to help Australians overseas but Morrison is behaving as if in a moral vacuum — he does not seem to care very much about the suffering caused to fellow Australians."