Buried in Australia’s federal budget papers this week was a prediction that devastated the million Australians, like me, who live abroad and the mil

Australia Is the New Hermit Kingdom

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2021-07-19 20:00:04

Buried in Australia’s federal budget papers this week was a prediction that devastated the million Australians, like me, who live abroad and the millions more at home who love them: The national borders are likely to remain closed until at least mid-2022.

Australia slammed its doors as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and it has kept them more firmly shut than any nation save, perhaps, North Korea. Plenty if not most nations have restricted nonessential travel since the start of the pandemic. But very few have forbidden their own citizens from leaving, not even China, and certainly none—except for Australia—that are democracies.

Buried in Australia’s federal budget papers this week was a prediction that devastated the million Australians, like me, who live abroad and the millions more at home who love them: The national borders are likely to remain closed until at least mid-2022.

Australia slammed its doors as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and it has kept them more firmly shut than any nation save, perhaps, North Korea. Plenty if not most nations have restricted nonessential travel since the start of the pandemic. But very few have forbidden their own citizens from leaving, not even China, and certainly none—except for Australia—that are democracies.

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