Minister Hawke responds to travel to and from India

Mr Pawan Luthra: Thank you, Prime Minister. Last quick question for Minister Hawke. Minister Hawke, tell us, when can we expect to see our family and friends again. We've spoken about students coming over, we've spoken about skilled migrants, but Indian Australians haven't seen the family for two years. Once we're at 90 per cent vaccination, would you allow international travel of family and friends from India to Australia?

The Hon. Alex Hawke Mp, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs: Hi Pawan, hopefully you can hear me? Well, that's good, now you're going to get an answer. Thanks, Prime Minister, also for the invitation, I might address your question. I think that's your third question Pawan, but you've asked about students as well so it's pretty important that I answer that issue. I know that's an issue for a lot of the diaspora here in Australia. As the Prime Minister said, we're working closely with states about what that will look like. From a visa perspective, very conscious of the offerings that are being made by countries like Canada and the UK. But at the moment, students are studying online. That experience is is going well. We've enabled that idea, there in those tutorials, there in those lectures, the Education Minister and myself regularly assess these things. There's still great demand for the Australian education product, and we want to make sure that that is taken up again as soon as possible. Some of the products that have been offered offshore have been varying in experience. One of the things people like about Australia is the safety, the good employment circumstances, the opportunities for their children to come and study here. So the work that you would expect to be done is being done behind the scenes to be ready to enable international students to return. We miss them. And we're finding our businesses miss them, our education facilities are missing them, obviously. That exchange is vital as well for our country. So India, Australia. So that work is being done. I'm working very closely with the Education Minister. We have several proposals that will continue to roll out. I know it's frustrating sometimes these things take a little bit longer than people would like, but the community's been very patient. Some people offshore are very impatient.

But if you look at what the Government's done throughout the pandemic, we've been flexible, we've been responsible from a visa perspective. We've made sure that we err on the side of not penalising people for things that have happened to them because of the pandemic. So we'll continue to do that from a visa perspective. But we are working closely with the sector, with the universities, with the private education sector to make sure that we've got the right mix of incentives and visa conditions to take up the opportunities post the pandemic. And we're very conscious of that. We want to be an attractive market. Demand is there though, and we've still got incredible demand for Australia. So we need you guys to communicate with the community, and thank you for all you have been doing in that regard. In relation to travel, you know, this is the big question. As the Prime Minister said, we'll obviously be focussing on returning Australians. Once we get through that phase it is a huge priority for people to be travelling back to countries because, as you know, almost everyone here in Australia has lost sometimes two, three or four family members back in India because of the Delta variant. And we're very conscious of that. They haven't been able to have their last funeral rites, their faith traditions. It's a big psychological issue for the Australian diaspora. We're very conscious of it and we're working, as you'd expect. We've got big tenders out about how we do our digital processes so we can recognise, and that's why the Prime Minister's negotiating with Prime Minister Modi about all of these issues, how people will be able to travel safely with their passports to get in and out of countries. And we know there is huge demand and, you know, a great need for people to go and see their families in India when this has come to an end after the great tragedy that's happened in the last year.

And while I'm here, I'll just say a big thank you to all of you for being very responsible during that very difficult phase that we had, you know, in terms of the Delta outbreak in India and the travel issues. I think Australia handled that really well. The media, you handled that really well as well. I know we spoke a lot at that time, but I just thank you while I've got the opportunity and we're all here to say, the community, I think, here in Australia was helped by the fact that we were very responsible in the way we spoke about those issues because it was such a difficult time. And it still remains a difficult time for people that lost so many relatives back home. So look, we'll keep working together. We'll have a lot more announcements. They're coming. But the work that you'd expect government to do, the Prime Minister's got us all working very, very hard to be ready, so we're ready to open those borders and ready for these travel arrangements to be announced. I know you'll be hearing about it first, Pawan.