Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Wong for her question. I think it is very important to be quite clear about this, because the government has made our position very clear. We are considering, on a case-by-case basis, supporting our airlines to operate non-scheduled services to less-central locations to bring Australians home. We will do that, where it is feasible, where all other commercial options have been exhausted and where local authorities will permit such flights. That last point is particularly relevant.

We don't have plans for assisted departures in the same way that we, for example, conducted flights to what was then the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, Wuhan—and secondly to Japan—because those flights were unique; those were complex medical exercises to the epicentres of the virus at the beginning of this crisis in Wuhan. The situation of Australians at the moment is quite different from that. I have been through that context in the chamber today and on many other occasions. We are considering, on a case-by-case basis, supporting our airlines to operate non-scheduled services to less-central locations to bring Australians home. Some of those decision-making processes in parts of South America and in other countries are well underway.

As I explained to the Senate, in response to Senator Smith's excellent question, in places like Nepal, where we have been able to work with a commercial operator, we have brought Australians from very remote parts of Nepal—from Pokhara, Chitwan and Lukla, for example—to Kathmandu to make sure that we could put as many Australians as possible on that flight, and New Zealanders, to bring them to Australia.