Bring these Aussies home
SO the Olympics are coming to Queensland. Because the Premier went to Tokyo.
We should celebrate the fact that this state will, in just over a decade’s time, welcome the world.
It’s always hard to predict the future, but already one expects it will be a far grander affair than the Japanese version, which has been hit with multiple Covid-19 cases, a rape allegation and claims an outside swimming venue “smells like a toilet” because it is beset with sewage.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is no doubt taking notes from her Tokyo hotel room. She will have even more time for reflection when she returns to Queensland and tastes the humdrum existence of a hotel quarantine guest.
Might this column be so bold as to suggest some light reading for Ms Palaszczuk to help her while away the hours?
Like the story of Donna Lewis. Ms Lewis is from the Sunshine Coast. Ms Palaszczuk will know it – it’s where a wedding party had their hotel booking cancelled just three days before the ceremony so an NRL team could be accommodated.
Ms Lewis is not an NRL player,
I JUST WANT TO GO TO AUSTRALIA WHERE I CAN GET WORK, MAKE MY KIDS HAPPY AND KEEP THEM SAFE.
PHILLIP BURCHETT
a movie star, or someone IOC grandees wish to eyeball, so is finding it a little harder to make her way to Queensland.
Instead, she is someone who flew to the UK in February to be with her dying father in his final days. Her return ticket was cancelled after the overseas arrivals cap was halved at Ms Palaszczuk’s insistence, and now she is stuck.
“I haven’t seen my husband for five months, haven’t seen my children for five months and there’s no real saying when I will get back,” she told the BBC.
She has since been quoted $14,000 for a one-way ticket.
“I have been told it will be the beginning of September, but the flights and the price to get home in September are just extortionate.”
Ms Palaszczuk might also consider the story of former Gold Coast resident Phillip Burchett, whose stepson was one of 202 people killed in the Bali bombings in 2002.
He lost his job as an executive chef at a Bali restaurant due to the pandemic and, unable to book a flight home, was recently jailed for three weeks for overstaying his visa.
“I just want to go to Australia where I can get work, make my kids happy and keep them safe,” he said.
A more uplifting read is the story of Tweed Heads couple Jake Shepherd and Tamara Ilic.
After enduring months of cancelled flights as they tried to get back from Panama, the pair hatched a plan to sail home instead. They’ve made it as far as Fiji and hope to reach these shores soon.
This column trusts Ms Palaszczuk will have a smoother trip home. Goodness knows she could do with it, having recently shared that she finds her job “stressful” and invited people to “come and take a walk in my shoes”.
The 14 days in hotel quarantine will hopefully give her a chance to clear the mind. To read a little. To catch up on how it is in other people’s shoes.
Slashing the international arrivals cap was a cruel blow to many. Crueller still when they can see that the likes of Matt Damon and Tom Hanks are exempt.
It is wonderful that Queensland will host the Olympics. But before we welcome the world, we should make a more serious effort to welcome our own home first.