Australians stuck overseas are telling me that they feel as if they've been abandoned by their own government and as if the government has for months ignored their pleas for help to return home. This government's failure to act is generating widespread anxiety among people stuck overseas and also their families at home. It's costing people huge amounts of money—enormous amounts—just to try and get a seat on a flight, and it's exacerbating pre-existing mental health conditions to a point where individuals and their families are fearful for their lives. This is a fear that runs through many of the emails and phone calls to my office, from parents who know the signs of adult children and can see slides into depression, and from trapped Aussies making disclosures of suicidal feelings. When John Howard declared in 2001 that under his leadership 'we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come', these Australians could never have imagined that there would be a Liberal government applying the same words to them. The Prime Minister's promise of getting everyone home by Christmas and now his attempt to spin it and say he's done what he promised are an absolute insult. There are 37,000 Australians stuck overseas. Eight thousand of them are considered vulnerable, and I have emails from some of those. The Prime Minister has just eight days to keep his promise to get all these Australians home to their families and out of quarantine by Christmas.

His claims are an insult to people like Liz, whose son has been stuck in Germany. He's been registered for months with DFAT, and he was recently told that his flight, booked for yesterday, had been cancelled. He has no access to a replacement flight, with three repatriation flights from Heathrow completely full. Like so many, Liz's son has had no work for two months, has no accommodation and is couch surfing. It's winter. It's minus two degrees. You can imagine the mental health impacts. There's Maddie, whose German visa to work as an au pair has expired. She's sleeping on a friend's mother's couch in Italy as her remaining funds run low, all the while trying to find a way home. Then there's Donna and her family in India. They were there for a year's work but were unable to get a flight until just last week, when they flew to England in order to get a flight home. As an Australian citizen, Donna said she had never thought she'd be on the wrong end of Australia's border policies. She points out that they had only three days between the advisory to come home and India going into lockdown, and it wasn't enough time to pack up an apartment and pack up their lives there.

I have constituents trying to get back from Dubai, Laos, Taiwan, Denmark, the UK and Canada—the list goes on, with example after example where the government has forced them to reveal personal, private details of their health in order to try to get special treatment and get themselves home. They should not have to do that and expose themselves to bureaucrats. Even when they do eventually return home, there's significant damage that will have been done to their mental health, to their finances and, depending on their exposure to COVID, to their physical health. You have to ask: why aren't there chartered flights, or why isn't the RAAF being used to bring these people home? We have no explanation from the government for why they are not prepared to do that. They're prepared to put on a plane for Mathias Cormann, and they're not prepared to bring Australians home.

Those opposite are going to blame the states and the caps on quarantine for the failure to get everyone home by Christmas. They'll single out Labor states even though it's the practice of every state. It begs the question: if border security is a federal responsibility, why has the federal government just handed it to the states? I'll tell you why: because it's a government that tries to absolve itself of any responsibility when it can pass it to someone else. It's done it with aged care during COVID, letting the states carry the can. It's done it with the royal commission recommendation for a national firefighting fleet, again letting the states take responsibility. Just as it did with Ruby Princess, it's doing it again with COVID and border protection, sitting back with a smirk and a shrug saying, 'Oh, it's not us.' Yes, it is. The Prime Minister could boost safety quarantine capacity. There's a report on his desk telling him how. Australians have a right to come home. This government has a responsibility to make it happen, and it lo