“Safe reopening of international borders is one of the biggest decisions facing Australia,” says Property Council chief executive Ken Morrison as our population declines for the first time in a century.
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Three key takeaways:
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Friday’s National Cabinet meeting tasked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – the nation’s key decision-making committee for health emergencies – with guidance on the future of international border quarantine arrangements.
The committee will now examine the implications of quarantine arrangements and easing Australian international border restrictions following the Phase 1A and 1B vaccine rollout.
The federal government has secured an additional 20 million doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, taking the total to 40 million doses in 2021. This announcement follows the recent decision to restrict the AstraZeneca vaccine to adults under the age of 50.
Speaking to the media on Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the medical expert panel would determine the “thresholds” required so Australians who are vaccinated can “travel overseas and return to Australia and not go into hotel quarantine,” instead quarantining at home “or not at all”. This could enable “travel from low-risk countries with similar vaccine systems down the line”.
Australia relies on migration for around two-thirds of its population growth. Property Council chief Ken Morrison says our closed borders will have a lasting impact, with around one million fewer Australians in 2022 than previously predicted.
“Population growth is a critical ingredient to Australia’s economic success. If the resumption of normal border arrangements cannot occur until sometime in 2022, National Cabinet should take concrete steps to increase our quarantine capacity now,” Morrison says.
For the first time in more than a century, Australia’s population has declined. More people left Australia between July and September last year than arrived, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. While Australia’s natural population growth was 30,600 people, 34,800 people left the country, leading to a decrease of 4,200 people, or 0.02 per cent.
The last time Australia’s population fell was December 1916. This was during World War I when the population declined by 51,500 people, ABS demography director Phil Browning recently told the ABC.
Ken Morrison says Australia needs “greater clarity and consistency not just around our domestic restrictions but also around the implications of the vaccine rollout on our international quarantine arrangements”.
“Australia can stay safe and accelerate economic recovery by ramping up our quarantine arrangements to enable 10 times the current capacity.”