While much of the focus of Australia’s border closure has been on the difficulties citizens have returning home, lesser-known are the stories of the growing number of Australians looking to leave permanently.
Last week’s federal budget calculations assumed the vaccine rollout would be completed by the end of the year and thatThe indefinite border ban, first introduced in March 2020, has prompted her and her ex husband, a British-Australian, to both quit the country. She says she regularly writes to Health Minister Greg Hunt asking for a plan for when the borders will reopen but receives a proforma response saying how well Australia has managed the pandemic.
Taking flight: Molly Fleck with 14-month-old son TJ in Surry Hills on Saturday. The family will relocate to the US because of Australia’s travel ban.Williams is not alone in feeling this way. Molly Fleck and her husband came to work in Australia four years ago, she at a leading university in Sydney and he in finance for a US-based firm. They are booked on a flight to Chicago next week.
While she’ll greatly miss her job, her friends and Sydney’s beauty, she says the country “can be an unwelcoming place for migrants” — something that has been amplified by the pandemic.“I definitely feel that it has grown in the pandemic and that it’s given people permission to voice things that they previously would have kept silent about.”
latikambourke See ya
latikambourke latikambourke thank you for exposing this absurd situation. Where AlexHawkeMP ScottMorrisonMP separate and torture families till they leave Australia.
latikambourke Bye then
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latikambourke Very privelaged lifestyle having 2 homes in 2 different countries when many Austraians live in poverty and don't have a home. I can't really say I feel sorry for her.
latikambourke Australia has deteriated terribly over the last 50 yrs. Life is nowhere near as good. Violence and crime a daily event. Govts and councils robbing people blind. No morals .
latikambourke I certainly feel Y I took up Aus citizenship. If I was a PR I could have left this country when I lost my dad. FortressAustralia certainly feels like I am in N.Korea. Plus there is no value of being a citizen as you cannot return when in need.
latikambourke Hope you can leave soon. We will not miss you. Don’t come back.
latikambourke Anyone with this attitude should surrender their Australian citizenship and depart our shores at the first available opportunity, Latika Bourke with them.
latikambourke Bye then
latikambourke Tata bye bye see ya
latikambourke Hey Cristina, good riddance.
latikambourke Had dinner with two returned ex-pats last night. They think we live in a relative utopia compared with the nightmare covid has delivered them elsewhere
latikambourke Leading in a time of crisis does not mean fortifying the Country, it means finding workable solutions to cater for all Australians. Unfortunately does not win votes but will win the hearts of those most impacted.
Toodle-pip!! 👋
latikambourke Thank you for sharing these stories and situations that people would rather ignore. Something has to change because families are being torn apart and ppls mental health can’t deal with uncertainty like this
latikambourke So some privileged woman who chooses to split her time between Australia and the US is complaining that measures designed to protect Australian lives are getting in the way of her life. Give me a fucking break!
latikambourke Please close the door on your way out 👋
latikambourke Bye. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
latikambourke Let her go back to her crap hole USA home. Where people are beating each other to death. She was only here to mooch off our benefits, send her packing and let her leave, ban her from returning while your at it.
latikambourke See ya 👍
latikambourke We’re being locked in or out because of politics. Not medics. It’s possible to safely quarantine people in or out. Scroto doesn’t want to risk a Fed govt failure. And most of the public are happy to give away other people’s citizen right to enter or leave the country. Pathetic
latikambourke Migration has always been of Australia's story and it will always be so. A few people leaving makes interesting copy but means nothing. Manage the borders now.
latikambourke I would be very pleased if we had a govt in Aus with enough guts to put an end to the ‘citizenship of convenience’ rort & cleared up the anomalies in our many visa categories. Far too “communities” have only loose affiliations to Aus, IMO.
latikambourke While I feel sympathy for her situation, it’s a global pandemic in the end. Every country has different strategies & each to their own. You can’t say just coz the gov’s decision to lockdown border doesn’t suit you so it doesn’t “feel like your home anymore”.
latikambourke Poor diddums - you are lucky to live in Australia
latikambourke Australia will be a forgotten backwater soon
latikambourke What a stupid story!! If you are leaving permanently, you’re allow to go. 🤔🤔
latikambourke Goodbye, it’s not as if she has deserted a country before, besides her goal was to get to the US via Oz like most from El Salvador. She’s there. The story is a beat up.
latikambourke Like me as soon as I can fly out I am leaving for good sick of this sh-t hole of a country run by clowns who have no bloody idea & a PM who is as mad as a hatter. I used to love Australia but now just Hate the place AnnieFuller09 monicaclare21 latikambourke ljayes AlboMP
latikambourke The liberal party are to blame. Terrible economy managers
latikambourke Scomo is Making Australia Great Again, isn’t he?
latikambourke Yep okay, see ya. Make sure you renounce your Australian citizenship on the way out.
latikambourke I started suffering from panic attacks & stopped being able to get out of bed. Being partnersapart for 15 months & trying to navigate the process & PMV300 almost destroyed me. In the end I left Aus for my mental health & it was the best thing I ever did.
latikambourke Enjoy Arizona.
latikambourke Sick Australian citizens left overseas to die...this really makes being an Australian insecure
jazzbby91 latikambourke So many of us are ready to throw in the towel! I’m right there with her!
latikambourke If it’s that bad here than you are welcome to never come back. I think we are very lucky 🍀 living here & I’d never want to live in the US - no thank you 🙏
latikambourke I hear you I'd love to leave here permanently this country lacks intelligence
latikambourke The expat professionals will boomerang straight back out of Aust when things are looking comfortable later this year. Secondly, a LOT of international students will reconsider studying in Aust. This will lead to a major brain-drain and a further decline in global rankings sorry
latikambourke I feel I live in a penal colony, punished due to no fault of mine. Gov’s have had more than a year, to prepare hospitals, immunisation programs, yet dragged their knuckles spending billions keeping us isolated. AUS needs a definite date to reopen to the world.
latikambourke Feel the same lately!! Thinking of heading back to USA!
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latikambourke Bye! This woman divides her time between Australia and the US where she has a home there. Wasn’t really a committed resident anyway. But given the opportunity Australia gave her when she needed it it kinda seems just alittle ungrateful too.
latikambourke i’m a dual citizen who has lost family to covid in us. i have not been able to return for funerals etc. that is life in pandemic - where we are asked 2 sacrifice 4 greater good.
latikambourke Australians with overseas partners and immediate families are expected to do 28 months apart? LoveIsNotTourism
latikambourke Could you have found a more obscure example of someone who’s considering emigrating?
latikambourke Zero Covid is the goal. How many front line health worker’s lives are they willing to risk?
latikambourke Never really was. International country shopper.
latikambourke I couldn’t be happier about my decision to remain PR and keep my European passport. At least I have an out of jail card.
latikambourke Another entitled one who thinks pandemics shouldn't interfere with her lifestyle.
latikambourke If Australia is unrecognizable compared to, say, the 1980s then it is because consecutive governments have allowed TOO MANY migrants on an annual basis, exceeding the socio-economic absorption capacity and introducing explosive forces into the society which now come to light
latikambourke It's the other way around. The Australian government ScottMorrisonMP is eager to get immigration back to previous levels ASAP because that is their only idea to grow the GDP which is of course completely unsustainable (water, fuel, energy) as our capital cities get clogged up
latikambourke Australia more & more is showing itself as a bastion of solid, white Anglo thinking, in domestic & foreign policy especially. So many people, who imagined Australia as multicultural, are finding this alienating & unwelcoming. Many ask, why is my country pushing a US war agenda?
latikambourke Glad to see the back of you after reading this 'Me me me' rubbish tbh But it seems this article just another part of the current Liberals PR campaign to put the economy before its citizens Libs are run by and for their corporate donors They want GDP growth at every cost back
latikambourke I think this song says it all: Locked In At Home // (I Still Call Australia Home)
latikambourke Bye
latikambourke
latikambourke Bye. Can we please check in 12 months time to make sure that Cristina has left.
latikambourke I’m thinking about it, in a general sort of way. I genuinely don’t want to live in a backward, hermit nation. Could easily get a job overseas again, rent out the house and so on. Zero COVID is idiotic. Australia has politicians too weak to tell us.
latikambourke Said no one ever
latikambourke This story would have been far more relevant if it had included statistics... Instead it relies almost entirely on one case, then adds a minor case that appears irrelevant as the couple concerned have booked flights to return to the US. Another Latika attempt to bash Australia
latikambourke Their allowed out, let them go, though may they always remember how difficult it had been to get home. Fly safe
latikambourke Sounds like ungrateful whining