Questions surrounding the announcement of re-opening of international borders

[MacGyver]

11 hours ago, Nemesis said:

But if they live in SA how can they complete home quarantine in NSW? they'd have to do hotel quarantine there. 

Qld is just being plain batty about it. Not o ly the strict rules about no shared entrances etc forhome quarantine property, but you are not allowed to get any deliveries! SO you arriver back from staying somewhere for months because of the border closures, but aren't allowed to order any food. And thats been cinfirmed by Queensland Health. No food deliveries, not even supermarkets, no mail, no nothing. Not sure how they plan to stop the mail, think that really is a step too far.

You also need your own transport and have to drive to get tests 4 times. Thats even dafter. Not allowed to get food delivered but you are allowed to go and and drive around to find a test centre. It also means if you don't have your own car, you will be put in a hotel. 

That seems like terrible planning that almost ensures people will be forced to break home quarantine to go and get food at the local supermarket. Madness!

[FirstWorldProblems]

Friday mark's one week since the announcement of international borders reopening on a limited basis.  The announcement said that details would be following over the next two weeks, but so far we have seen little of that detail.  I thought I'd just update the thread with my original questions, adding into one place other questions posed here and what has become more clear in this first week.  I'm hoping this is of use to others hoping to visit family in Australia.

Question: Are family of Citizens and perm Residents able to enter?

Answer: Yes.   Spouse and dependent children of citizens will be allowed to enter, including for tourism/visitor purposes.  At least one PIO member (me) has had travel exemption approved on this basis.  You are advised to apply not more than 2 months prior to travel and not less than 2 weeks.  Mine took less than 48 hours.  

Question: How do the family of citizens get a visa to join travelling citizens?

Answer: When you apply for exemption to travel, one of the mandatory fields is your approved visa number or your visa application number.   I had a visitor visa (601) application sat in "Received" state since February, so I used the application number and that visa was approved at the same time as the exemption  

Question: What constitutes "fully vaccinated"?

"Seven-day home quarantine for Australian citizens and permanent residents fully vaccinated" is great news for those visiting family.  No need to spend two weeks in a hotel.  But what constitutes fully vaccinated?  Australia is very clear that this is 2 doses of an approved vaccine.    In the UK (which is one of only two destinations Qantas is opening flights for), under 18's can only have one dose.

So will they be allowed to travel?

Update: precious little new info on this.  In the government media release it states "Those who can’t be vaccinated, including young children and those with a medical exemption, will be counted as vaccinated for travel".  I think this is cause for hope for those living in the UK with children where you absolutely cannot get a child double vaccinated unless they are extremely clinically vulnerable.

Question: Will Qantas refund a flexible ticket?

Given the uncertainty brought by the questions above, and the speed at which tickets are being bought, it seems sensible to book a seat via a fully flexible, fully refundable tickets.  Qantas describes their "flex" ticket as "fully refundable", but when you dig into the detail on their website, the refund is always referred to as a voucher that has to be used within 12 months.  

Answer: Yes. Though it's clearly not their preference and they don't make it easy.  If you are a paranoid sort like me, I'd advise doing the following. 

• Call Qantas (make sure you have a spare hour or more to spend on hold) and ask the advisor the question explicitly. 
• All calls are recorded and stored for 10 years. 
• Ask the advisor for the timestamp of the call on their end, where they are located and their name
• write it down somewhere safe in case it's needed later

Question: What proof will be needed to show someone is fully vaccinated @NicF

Update: This remains unclear.  Airlines have been told that they will need to ensure passengers are fully vaccinated, but they still await details of what that means and how it is to be proven

Question: How will home quarantine work? @NicF

Update: No official word on this.  SA is trialling an app with facial recognition and geo-tagging.  Details like restriction on other people who live in that home are unknown.  Some reasoned speculation in this article

Question: Flight reliability @Darrenowen

Update: Qantas remain the only carrier thus far adding more flights and they are certainly selling seats quickly (we missed a few preferred options as we wrung our hands over the price).  We won't know until they start flying in mid-November if they are reliable.  A fully flex ticket is refundable, but it's often a lot more expensive than the cancellation fee of a saver ticket.  If the airline cancel they'll refund you.  Your grandfather probably wouldn't need the travel exemption as he is a PR.

Question: How will quarantine work if you need a domestic flight to another state after entering Australia? @BusbyBoo

Update: there is currently no information on this other than SA announcing an intention to allow fully vaccinated visitors from NSW & Victoria to enter SA by Christmas

 

In the hope that this is of use to some people, I'll keep it updated as the details emerge

[BusbyBoo]

12 hours ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

Friday mark's one week since the announcement of international borders reopening on a limited basis.  The announcement said that details would be following over the next two weeks, but so far we have seen little of that detail.  I thought I'd just update the thread with my original questions, adding into one place other questions posed here and what has become more clear in this first week.  I'm hoping this is of use to others hoping to visit family in Australia.

Question: Are family of Citizens and perm Residents able to enter?

Answer: Yes.   Spouse and dependent children of citizens will be allowed to enter, including for tourism/visitor purposes.  At least one PIO member (me) has had travel exemption approved on this basis.  You are advised to apply not more than 2 months prior to travel and not less than 2 weeks.  Mine took less than 48 hours.  

Question: How do the family of citizens get a visa to join travelling citizens?

Answer: When you apply for exemption to travel, one of the mandatory fields is your approved visa number or your visa application number.   I had a visitor visa (601) application sat in "Received" state since February, so I used the application number and that visa was approved at the same time as the exemption  

Question: What constitutes "fully vaccinated"?

"Seven-day home quarantine for Australian citizens and permanent residents fully vaccinated" is great news for those visiting family.  No need to spend two weeks in a hotel.  But what constitutes fully vaccinated?  Australia is very clear that this is 2 doses of an approved vaccine.    In the UK (which is one of only two destinations Qantas is opening flights for), under 18's can only have one dose.

So will they be allowed to travel?

Update: precious little new info on this.  In the government media release it states "Those who can’t be vaccinated, including young children and those with a medical exemption, will be counted as vaccinated for travel".  I think this is cause for hope for those living in the UK with children where you absolutely cannot get a child double vaccinated unless they are extremely clinically vulnerable.

Question: Will Qantas refund a flexible ticket?

Given the uncertainty brought by the questions above, and the speed at which tickets are being bought, it seems sensible to book a seat via a fully flexible, fully refundable tickets.  Qantas describes their "flex" ticket as "fully refundable", but when you dig into the detail on their website, the refund is always referred to as a voucher that has to be used within 12 months.  

Answer: Yes. Though it's clearly not their preference and they don't make it easy.  If you are a paranoid sort like me, I'd advise doing the following. 

• Call Qantas (make sure you have a spare hour or more to spend on hold) and ask the advisor the question explicitly. 
• All calls are recorded and stored for 10 years. 
• Ask the advisor for the timestamp of the call on their end, where they are located and their name
• write it down somewhere safe in case it's needed later

Question: What proof will be needed to show someone is fully vaccinated @NicF

Update: This remains unclear.  Airlines have been told that they will need to ensure passengers are fully vaccinated, but they still await details of what that means and how it is to be proven

Question: How will home quarantine work? @NicF

Update: No official word on this.  SA is trialling an app with facial recognition and geo-tagging.  Details like restriction on other people who live in that home are unknown.  Some reasoned speculation in this article

Question: Flight reliability @Darrenowen

Update: Qantas remain the only carrier thus far adding more flights and they are certainly selling seats quickly (we missed a few preferred options as we wrung our hands over the price).  We won't know until they start flying in mid-November if they are reliable.  A fully flex ticket is refundable, but it's often a lot more expensive than the cancellation fee of a saver ticket.  If the airline cancel they'll refund you.  Your grandfather probably wouldn't need the travel exemption as he is a PR.

Question: How will quarantine work if you need a domestic flight to another state after entering Australia? @BusbyBoo

Update: there is currently no information on this other than SA announcing an intention to allow fully vaccinated visitors from NSW & Victoria to enter SA by Christmas

 

In the hope that this is of use to some people, I'll keep it updated as the details emerge

With the flights through Qantas, even without a flex ticket, which costs considerably more, they are offering free flight changes (of course paying any difference in new booking) or a credit, so not really much differs to a flex ticket.

My question about domestic flights after landing could be a real problem. As at the moment flights with Qantas are only going to leave Melbourne or Sydney, (although there could be a connection in Perth,( not looking likely) or Darwin (still in discussion), people from all other states can’t quarantine at home after landing unless they take a domestic flight……… and sharing a flight with international travellers would go down like a lead balloon for the domestic travellers! Mmmm can’t wait to see how this will work. Personally I’m glad I live in NSW for this reason. In particular Queensland or Western Australia will definitely not want international arrivals on a domestic flight, sharing  all their potential Covid germs 🦠 and tbh you couldn’t blame them.
 

There’s still a lot of logistics to work out.

[Wanderer Returns]

On 05/10/2021 at 19:58, Mmmbop said:

Can I clarify, do you mean you received an exemption for your family to visit Australia? Or for you to visit family in Australia?

If so, can I ask what the relationship is? i.e. parents (non immediate family) or 'immediate' family? 

@Mmmbop In all fairness you would have known this had you taken time to read the thread from the start, rather than hijacking someone else's post for your own question. It's fine if the question is closely related, but clearly not if it leads to antagonistic debate about an unrelated matter. I've been a PiO member for nearly a decade and I've found it to be an invaluable source of information, and most members extremely helpful. Of course, if you come here looking for an argument then you will surely find one, but that's true of any forum. I appreciate not everyone is happy with Australia's travel restriction policy and some see it as an infringement of their civil liberties, but I'd suggest the 'Chewing the fat' section of the forum is the best place to discuss that.

Any naturalized Australian has the right to renounce their citizenship, and any permanent resident can apply to have their PR cancelled - after which they can leave these shores without any restriction. That option has always been available to those who wish to leave Australia permanently, which makes the whole discussion about obtaining travel exemptions irrelevant.

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/cancelling-a-visa

[Mmmbop]

1 hour ago, Wanderer Returns said:

@Mmmbop In all fairness you would have known this had you taken time to read the thread from the start, rather than hijacking someone else's post for your own question. It's fine if the question is closely related, but clearly not if it leads to antagonistic debate about an unrelated matter. I've been a PiO member for nearly a decade and I've found it to be an invaluable source of information, and most members extremely helpful. Of course, if you come here looking for an argument then you will surely find one, but that's true of any forum. I appreciate not everyone is happy with Australia's travel restriction policy and some see it as an infringement of their civil liberties, but I'd suggest the 'Chewing the fat' section of the forum is the best place to discuss that.

Any naturalized Australian has the right to renounce their citizenship, and any permanent resident can apply to have their PR cancelled - after which they can leave these shores without any restriction. That option has always been available to those who wish to leave Australia permanently, which makes the whole discussion about obtaining travel exemptions irrelevant.

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/cancelling-a-visa

What on earth are you on about? Are you actually suggesting that if you are a citizen and you wish to move abroad you should have to renounce your citizenship? Absolute raging nonsense. 

If you read the thread you'd see that I asked an entirely relevant question about the reliability of outbound flights. During the course of the response I received, someone else brought up the topic of exemptions and how easy they are to get. I corrected her. All of which is also relevant to this topic, as previously stated on this thread, because anyone leaving the country permanently needs to know about the exemption situation.

The question you actually quote, which is nothing to do with that discussion, is also entirely relevant, and the information I requested was not previously stated anywhere.

So do pipe down. 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Mmmbop

[Nemesis]

2 hours ago, Wanderer Returns said:

@Mmmbop In all fairness you would have known this had you taken time to read the thread from the start, rather than hijacking someone else's post for your own question. It's fine if the question is closely related, but clearly not if it leads to antagonistic debate about an unrelated matter. I've been a PiO member for nearly a decade and I've found it to be an invaluable source of information, and most members extremely helpful. Of course, if you come here looking for an argument then you will surely find one, but that's true of any forum. I appreciate not everyone is happy with Australia's travel restriction policy and some see it as an infringement of their civil liberties, but I'd suggest the 'Chewing the fat' section of the forum is the best place to discuss that.

Any naturalized Australian has the right to renounce their citizenship, and any permanent resident can apply to have their PR cancelled - after which they can leave these shores without any restriction. That option has always been available to those who wish to leave Australia permanently, which makes the whole discussion about obtaining travel exemptions irrelevant.

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/cancelling-a-visa

Cancelling citizenship is relatively simple, but u fortunately requesting that your PR be cancelled is far more difficult. Having seen a post in a facebook group from a US citizen with Australian PR, who wished to leave permanently but had been refused several times, I asked an agent friend if it was possible to cancel PR in order to leave. Seems it is complex and far from the easy process one would expect. He even got advice from the Ministers office. Unless one breaks the law or similar, and results in the Immigration Dept cancelling it, its pretty much impossible. 

[Marisawright]

2 hours ago, Wanderer Returns said:

Any naturalized Australian has the right to renounce their citizenship, and any permanent resident can apply to have their PR cancelled - after which they can leave these shores without any restriction. That option has always been available to those who wish to leave Australia permanently

Actually no, I don't think cancelling your PR is an option.   The question has come up relating to claiming your superannuation.  I'm not sure it would help anyway, because you wouldn't have proof of residency overseas.

[Wanderer Returns]

On 05/10/2021 at 19:58, Mmmbop said:

Can I clarify, do you mean you received an exemption for your family to visit Australia? Or for you to visit family in Australia?

If so, can I ask what the relationship is? I.e. parents (non immediate family) or 'immediate' family? 

 

1 hour ago, Mmmbop said:

What on earth are you on about? Are you actually suggesting that if you are a citizen and you wish to move abroad you should have to renounce your citizenship? Absolute raging nonsense. 

If you read the thread you'd see that I asked an entirely relevant question about the reliability of outbound flights. During the course of the response I received, someone else brought up the topic of exemptions and how easy they are to get. I corrected her. All of which is also relevant to this topic, as previously stated on this thread, because anyone leaving the country permanently needs to know about the exemption situation.

The question you actually quote, which is nothing to do with that discussion, is also entirely relevant, and the information I requested was not previously stated anywhere.

So do pipe down. 

I read the thread, Einstein - I was actually the first one to comment on it. The OP stated he is looking to travel to Australia with his family for Christmas, and later on that his wife is desperate to visit her family there. Your initial question and subsequent ramblings about exemptions weren't relevant because they were about leaving Australia - not travelling here. This was already pointed out to you on several occasions by Marisa, although you didn't seem to be able to get a grasp on that as you were too busy bagging the Australian government.

I agree, renouncing one's citizenship or cancelling your a permanent visa is a drastic measure, and one that most people would never consider, but I was stating it's an option if the government wouldn't allow you to leave otherwise. If you never want to come back here to live, then what have you got to lose? (That's rhetorical, by the way)

My original point still stands. It's poor show hijacking someone's else's post and then arguing with others about unrelated topics. Just start you own post in future.

If you're finding life hard in Australia then God help you when you return to the UK - you attitude stinks. Although I believe they need a few truck drivers by all accounts 

I'll pipe down now.

[Wanderer Returns]

1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

Cancelling citizenship is relatively simple, but u fortunately requesting that your PR be cancelled is far more difficult. Having seen a post in a facebook group from a US citizen with Australian PR, who wished to leave permanently but had been refused several times, I asked an agent friend if it was possible to cancel PR in order to leave. Seems it is complex and far from the easy process one would expect. He even got advice from the Ministers office. Unless one breaks the law or similar, and results in the Immigration Dept cancelling it, its pretty much impossible. 

 

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

Actually no, I don't think cancelling your PR is an option.   The question has come up relating to claiming your superannuation.  I'm not sure it would help anyway, because you wouldn't have proof of residency overseas.

I certainly wouldn't argue with a RMA, but when I log into my wife's ImmiAccount there's a link to request visa cancellation.

[Marisawright]

39 minutes ago, Wanderer Returns said:

 

I certainly wouldn't argue with a RMA, but when I log into my wife's ImmiAccount there's a link to request visa cancellation.

Maybe, but it's just to REQUEST visa cancellation.  Immigration is under absolutely no obligation to grant the request.  It's entirely at their discretion and from what agents say, if it's a PR visa then you've got Buckley's.

[Mmmbop]

2 hours ago, Wanderer Returns said:

 

I read the thread, Einstein - I was actually the first one to comment on it. The OP stated he is looking to travel to Australia with his family for Christmas, and later on that his wife is desperate to visit her family there. Your initial question and subsequent ramblings about exemptions weren't relevant because they were about leaving Australia - not travelling here. This was already pointed out to you on several occasions by Marisa, although you didn't seem to be able to get a grasp on that as you were too busy bagging the Australian government.

I agree, renouncing one's citizenship or cancelling your a permanent visa is a drastic measure, and one that most people would never consider, but I was stating it's an option if the government wouldn't allow you to leave otherwise. If you never want to come back here to live, then what have you got to lose? (That's rhetorical, by the way)

My original point still stands. It's poor show hijacking someone's else's post and then arguing with others about unrelated topics. Just start you own post in future.

If you're finding life hard in Australia then God help you when you return to the UK - you attitude stinks. Although I believe they need a few truck drivers by all accounts 

I'll pipe down now.

You melon. 

The OP says: Thinking there might be others struggling with the same questions, I thought I'd start a thread where we can share any answers we might find, or add to the related questions.

So I added my question, to the thread, which is titled 'Questions surrounding the announcement of re-opening of international borders'.

I don't see anything restricting conversation to the discussion of inbound flights.

Again, I asked a good faith question. In the course of that discussion, someone else brought up the issue to which you're referring, one which is close to my heart, and I wasn't about to just let it slide. Again, that discussion was also relevant to this, again, open, thread.

For all the disagreement, @Marisa was not 'pointing out' the irrelevance of my question, she was answering it, helpfully, until we came to the difference of opinion.

So why don't you just mind your own business and let the discussion continue.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Mmmbop

[Wanderer Returns]

42 minutes ago, Mmmbop said:

You melon. 

The OP says: Thinking there might be others struggling with the same questions, I thought I'd start a thread where we can share any answers we might find, or add to the related questions.

So I added my question, to the thread, which is titled 'Questions surrounding the announcement of re-opening of international borders'.

I don't see anything restricting conversation to the discussion of inbound flights.

Again, I asked a good faith question. In the course of that discussion, someone else brought up the issue to which you're referring, one which is close to my heart, and I wasn't about to just let it slide. Again, that discussion was also relevant to this, again, open, thread.

For all the disagreement, @Marisa was not 'pointing out' the irrelevance of my question, she was answering it, helpfully, until we came to the difference of opinion.

So why don't you just mind your own business and let the discussion continue.

Absolutely. Be my guest...

[Mmmbop]

9 minutes ago, Wanderer Returns said:

Absolutely. Be my guest...

Absolute troll you are. You've done more than me to disrupt the discussion. As you were.

[calNgary]

Well seeing as we have now resulted to personal comments and bickering despite you all knowing the rules we will close this thread.