During his press conference on 28 June 2021, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about Australia re-opening its borders, which closed March 2020. Morrison’s reply made it clear that this is not on the cards. He highlighted Australia’s ‘advantage at this point’ when it comes to Covid-19 and spoke about Australia’s ‘success to date’.

Closed borders aren’t a partisan matter. Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews called for a cap on international arrivals to allow the Government time to deal with the latest Delta variant and until a ‘critical mass’ of Australians had been vaccinated. Andrews proposed that the cap should be in place for three months. Yet, 18 months into a deadly pandemic, Australia’s vaccination rates are the worst in the OECD at only 4% fully vaccinated; in light of this statistic, a three-month cap makes little sense. It’ll take much longer to get a significant portion of the population vaccinated, made all the more challenging by the Federal Government’s mixed messages about vaccine availability and eligibility.