Australia PM Scott Morrison Stands Firm on India Travel Ban as Critics Cry ‘Racist’

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday rejected pressure to lift a temporary ban on inbound flights from India, saying any early resumption of arrivals from that coronavirus hot spot would erode Australia’s stretched quarantine capability.

Australia’s quarantine system witnessed an increase in the proportion of coronavirus-cases of Indian origin last month to approximately 56 per cent, rising from around 12 per cent a month ago.

The pause of flights that began last week will continue until May 15 and Morrison said the greater good of protecting all Australians from the threat of new infections remains his overwhelming priority.

The conservative coalition leader said the latest figures on positive cases in passengers coming out of India demanded the government pause flights as part of the travel two-week ban.

“The pandemic is raging,” he said, before promising “My government will take the steps necessary and the actions necessary to protect Australians so we can also bring more Australians home safely.”

He spoke as critics have lined up to call him “racist” for seeking to keep Australia virtually free of coronavirus with one of the lowest infection rates in the world.

Federal Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi wrote on Twitter the measures were “absolutely horrific and racist” while Australia’s former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said restrictions weren’t imposed on Australians returning from other nations at the height of their coronavirus waves.

“We didn’t see differential treatment being extended to… the United States, the UK, and any European country even though the rates of infection were very high and the danger of arrivals from those countries was very high,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

“There are different standards at play here depending on which part of the world you’re coming from.”

Other critics of the travel pause include former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, several Australian lawmakers and leaders of the country’s Indian community.

India on Tuesday surpassed 20 million total coronavirus cases since the pandemic began more than a year ago, and has seen its most severe wave of the disease over the past several weeks.

Last weekend, it became the first country in the world to record 400,000 new cases in a single day.

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