Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Our government makes sure it gives priority to Australians in chartering flights and facilitating flights. I can tell you that on those flights, absolutely, priority is firmly and squarely given to Australians. There are commercial flights as well that the government does not facilitate tickets on, but the government has made sure that the criteria for those who may not be Australians returning home are tight. Those criteria include circumstances where an individual may be the partner of an Australian citizen with rights to reside here. These are often compassionate circumstances or circumstances that are essential to the function of government or otherwise. Our effort has been on getting Australians home but doing so in a way that maintains Australia's safe management of COVID-19.