Loopylu

I don’t see any UNHCR citations of fundamental human rights law breaches for the UK in your post. The UK does not lock up genuine refugees indefinitely. The UK is not perfect but the fact you could pull up those reports shows that issues are not swept under the carpet as they are by the Australian media. People in Australia (including British immigrants) have no conscience and so long as they are OK, they wash their hands of their responsibilities towards the rest of the world and those less fortunate than themselves. As for me relocating to the UK, I would love nothing more but my children are at uni/late high school and my Australian husband is about to start dialysis. Hardly the time to up sticks or are you suggesting I abandon them? It’s typical Aussie to just trot out the ‘if you don’t love it, leave’.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sorry for your loss and what you went through. I would be more comfortable with Australia's approach if it treated all people trapped here the same. However, it has left temporary visa holders and international students who lost their jobs with no financial support and simply telling people who have lived here 5+ years or are semester away from getting their qualification to leave when there are no flights and their lives are here is inhuman. Canada and the UK gave temporary visa holders the same furlough pay as citizens. Australia is also cutting Jobkeeper at the end of this month when there are still numerous people whose jobs will not return for months, maybe, years. My Sister in Law works for Qantas international and she will lose all income on 31 March. She would love Qantas to make her redundant so that she has some money to live on while (at age 60 and with a mortgage) she tries to find other work but Qantas won't because she may be still needed, who knows when.

Ask the family of the young man who killed himself while quarantining in Melbourne....

Under the IHR convention that Australia has signed and ratified, it is illegal to prevent any citizen leaving a country unless they have committed a crime. Yes - the system worked but it should not have existed in the first place. I have no issue with preventing people returning to Australia without quarantining as that is proportionate to the risk and permitted by the convention. You obviously like being dictated to by politicians - I don't. My primary duty as a UK and Australian qualified lawyer is to uphold the law and so I am well within my rights to object when the law is broken by politicians who think they are above the law. If people did not complain (eg through unions etc) we would all be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and our employers could fire us if they decided they did not like us... We wouldn't have universal healthcare, free education, social services. No doubt, you think climate change protesters are complainers.... People like you benefit from the rights that are won by complainers....

I am sorry to hear about you not being able to be with your mother - it must have been very difficult and upsetting. I missed the passing and funerals of both my grandmothers - the first time when I was a student in the USSR and the second time I was living in Australia. For the first, the British Embassy had to tell me because it was impossible for my parents to phone me in those days of communism. When my second grandmother died, I was treated appallingly by my Australian employers (a top tier law firm) who complained when I left work on time to go home to talk to my father on the phone the day before his mother's funeral. I was not allowed any time off to grieve. Experiences like this don't exactly endear people to Australian culture.... I don't agree with you that ScoMo was setting an example. The Queen (who as far as I am aware is still Australia's head of state) had her vaccine (and owing to her age (over 90) it was right that she was an early uptaker). There was no need for ScoMo to do it. They could have asked John Howard to step in. ScoMo and his ilk look after number one first and they know how to "spin" a situation to their advantage....

You are exactly right. Also, when Covid started the UK was still part of the EU and it would have been illegal to close the borders to people from Europe. Unlike Australia, the UK abides by its international and domestic legal commitments. The UNHCR regularly cites Australia as being in violation of human rights treaties it has signed around treatment of refugees, freedom to cross borders and charging foreign residents for accessing public education. Australia is a law unto itself, which as a lawyer who has a duty to uphold the law, I find deeply disturbing.

You talk a lot of sense. The current approach to quarantine will become unsustainable very soon. It’s worrying that the LNP want to now prioritise new immigrants for quarantine places rather than returning residents. Money seems to matter more than people.

I think it is unnecessary how horrible NicF was in her assessment of my situation and her absolute lack of sympathy - hence my snide reference to her lack of expertise in English. I am not delighting in the pathetic Aussie vaccine roll out. Instead, I am both sad and angry about this. Why should ScoMo who is fit and healthy get his dose before my 58 year old husband (end stage kidney disease), the very elderly and other chronically ill people in Australia? Boris Johnson is only getting his AZ vaccine this week as he has waited his turn, allocated by age and health condition to get his dose. Australia has its priorities skewed in my view, putting the welfare of the rich, elite and Australian born ahead of the masses.

Yes, you will still have to quarantine in a hotel on arrival in Australia for some time to come. However, having the vaccine will hopefully stop you getting a nastier dose of Covid if you are unfortunate enough to catch Covid from others in quarantine hotels which seems to be a quite common occurrence in hotel quarantine in Australia. If you can come via Howard Springs I have heard first hand that this is a much nicer place to quarantine and there has been no community transmission in quarantine there.

I am not cross. Just very sad. If you have not been through this type of gut wrenching experience then you cannot really judge. I have work colleagues who have had to make the very difficult decision not to be with dying parents due to the travel restrictions and my heart aches for them. Hopefully you never have to go through this and, if you do, people are a bit nicer to you. Also, it's "borders", not "boarders". Australia and NZ could easily close borders due to not being a major transit hub. Of course, everyone ignores that fact when bigging up how well Australia and NZ has done on managing Covid. Not doing so well on the vaccine roll out though, eh! Also, I never mentioned the expense of returning. Fortunately my parents are fairly well off and so they have financed my trip and will pay for my quarantine on return. As I say, I hope this never happens to you or anyone you care about.

Hi Quoll Thanks for your care. I totally understand where you were coming from in not rushing back for a funeral. I know you got to spend lots of quality time with both of your parents in a place you love for several years and I am sure they both appreciated your care for them. I have managed to get to the UK and (like you were) I am loving being back (in spite of the difficult circumstances) and feel like I truly belong where I am. My stress related more to the fact that, with the new exemption process and lack of flights etc, it took a while to get out and my greatest fear now is not being able to get back to my family due to caps on arrivals. Two weeks in quarantine shouldn't be too bad as I can work remotely. I'll just treat it like a business trip, albeit rather restricted... My husband who is still in Brisbane has end stage chronic kidney disease and will start dialysis probably in May which made it hard for me to decide where to be but my husband was very supportive of me spending time with my parents. Fortunately my twin boys are 20 and daughter 16 and so they can help out on that front until I manage to return.

Bully for you. It has been an extremely stressful time trying to get back to the UK to spend time with my father before he dies a horrid but fairly quick death from pancreatic cancer. I work with others in Brisbane who have not been so lucky and they have missed the passing of parents and funerals. I sincerely hope this never happens to you or anyone you care about. You obviously have no sympathy for me or my family....

The UK (unlike Australia) has enshrined international human rights law into domestic legislation and there is nothing stopping you leaving the UK to live in another country. Australia is currently breaching its international human rights obligations by not allowing citizens and permanent residents to freely cross borders. I have just arrived in the UK and had to apply for a special exemption to leave Australia to visit my Dad who is terminally ill. I have a return flight booked in 2 months but due to the illegal caps on arrivals into Australia i don’t know how long I will be separated from my husband who is about to start dialysis and my kids. I could easily be bumped off my flight to make way for rich non-Australians.... Fortunately I am able to work remotely so at least my family won’t suffer financially as I am the main breadwinner. Your biggest problem with relocating to Australia will be getting in to the country due to the cap on arrivals....

Medicare don't encourage tourists to enrol. Instead, you pay up front at the GP or other medical facility and then claim it back from Medicare by showing your British passport. My parents had to do this when my father visited a few years back and had a catheter that needed to be changed by a medical professional. My father tried to enrol in Medicare and was told this was the process for those on a tourist visa.

My grandmother who died in 1990 used to get the additional means tested supplementary payments to boost her State Pension. She lived quite comfortably on this income. If you look at OECD social security league tables Australia ranks lower than the UK because it either does not have supplementary payments or such payments are lower. If you are unfortunate enough to be poor in Australia then you are forced to merely exist. My MIL was left with $15 a week once her nursing home costs were paid.... As you probably know, the Australian aged pension is means tested unlike the UK or other OECD pensions. Bearing in mind the rich in Australia manage to avoid so much tax, this is probably not a bad thing.

I think there was an option in the past to make extra payments and therefore get an enhanced UK State pension. I imagine this is what Tulip’s Mum did.

No intention of retiring or growing old in Oz. Just working on my escape plan...

Exactly. My parents identified this as a major issue too. This matter did go to court (if you emigrate to the US or Canada then indexation still applies) but the UK judiciary found in favour of the government... It’s your money and you are not using the NHS but still they try to trap you. In Australia, you are not allowed to move your superannuation overseas if you decide to return to the UK. For this reason and the fact that Australia will tax you heavily on transfer I have kept my UK private pension fund in the UK. Despite 2008 and Brexit it is still performing well and on a par with my Australian super.

Well if you would prefer not to be forewarned and bury your head in the sand.... It’s your choice. I am just sharing my experience of the treatment of a relatively poor not that old Australian lady. Maybe you have private health cover and the means to pay for decent aged care in which case you will probably be fine....

Not condoning the governments’ approach. It is appalling. My parents are both in their late 70s and I sincerely hope they (and you) have many more good years. If you read my earlier post about my Aussie MIL, I strongly suspect that the hospital deliberately let her die because she was 77. We don’t need euthanasia laws as hospitals already make these decisions on behalf of the elderly. In my MIL’s case, the hospital would only talk to my husband’s older sister as her attorney and unfortunately she did not hold them to account. Hopefully your spouse or kids will protect your interests if you end up in hospital and are too unwell to fight your own corner.

I was joking when I suggested opting out of tax. You've spent too long in Australia if you can no longer detect sarcasm. I'm in the same boat as you but if you can get a good tax accountant it is possible to substantially reduce your tax burden and lots of my lawyer colleagues do just this with negatively geared investment properties etc. Countries want to hang onto retirees in their earlier years (particularly the so called Boomer generation) as they have substantial spending power and relative wealth. They are great consumers and the travel industry specifically targets this demographic. Society only wants rid when people are over 75 and their bodies start to pack up and then start to put burden on the healthcare system.

National budgets are drawn up by reference to statistics and it would therefore be possible to allocate a notional share of the budget to an individual's social security relocation pot if governments were minded to do so. However, they want to trap us in one spot for our taxes and spending power. Perhaps we should just opt out of paying taxes like the very rich do? They don't pay their fair share but get to move around the world at will and access the best healthcare etc and they get far more respect from politicians than those of us who pay our dues to society.... At the end of the day we are still serfs but have better living conditions than those who lived in the Middle Ages.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the governments of this world in which populations are now so mobile would put in place some sort of reciprocal social security system. Let's face it, our parents in the UK have paid their NI contributions and tax their whole lives and so, if they choose to relocate to be where there children are, they should be able take their social security "pot" to where they choose to live. We have reciprocal healthcare and tax conventions..... Just a thought.

I hear you! My husband has Stage 4 Kidney Disease and has recently had a fistula created so that he can go on dialysis as and when his kidney function makes him too unwell. I started to work from home with my employer's blessing and my school age daughter started to study from home in early March before Qld started to lock down in order to protect my husband from Covid. I truly hope you can move here soon to be with your family but just want you to be realistic as the Australian Government has little compassion for family circumstances. As earlier posters have highlighted, Australia wants young highly skilled foreigners to boost its economy but not their elderly parents.... In my simplistic view of the world, international borders are artificial constructs to keep out perceived undesirables on the basis of colour, religion, wealth, disability and age. Hopefully your visa application is successful and you can reunite with your family. Get a good immigration lawyer/agent is the best advice I can give you. All the best!

Toots - thanks for your volunteering efforts. Australia needs more people like you. My MIL's experience is the tip of the iceberg in some very nasty experiences I have had in my 12 years in Australia but I won't bore you with the details. However, hopefully this goes some way to explain why I don't like living here and maybe some of the people who have posted some quite hurtful comments in response to my posts might now understand why I don't consider Australia to be paradise on earth..... I have also volunteered a lot in Australia. I have assisted children from very deprived backgrounds with reading and mentoring to assist them to grow, prepared statutory declarations for refugees about their experiences (very harrowing) and why they should be allowed to remain in Australia and my latest is as the risk and compliance officer for a small charity that provides overseas aid in the Asia-Pacific region. Anyway, I am digressing from the topic of this thread which is aged care. So to return to topic - if you are financially secure, Australia is potentially a good place to grow old provided you can either stay in your own home and pay for the support that you need or find a decent care home. Happy New Year Toots!