“This is 90 per cent of the people’s view: they said if ‘real’ Australians were there, the Australian government would have sent planes there.
But his counterpart in Victoria, Sury Soni, said he did not believe the jail terms were discriminatory, as there were Australian citizens not from Indian backgrounds who were also now stranded in India and unable to return. Of the 121 cases of COVID-19 in that group, 103 were among people returning from India compared to only two cases from the United Kingdom, one from South Africa, two from France and seven from Germany.
Infections in quarantine have grown from 14 in February, to 38 in March, and 210 in April, he said. The proportion of those cases coming from India also grew, from 8.8 per cent in February to more than 56 per cent just before the decision was made to halt flights. Senator Fierravanti-Wells, who chairs the Senate committee that scrutinises delegated legislation and regulation, has previously warned against the growing number of decisions that are exempt from parliamentary scrutiny.The committee recommended last December that Biosecurity Act decisions such as the Indian ban should be subject to debate and disallowance in Parliament.
The letter was not released with the government’s press release at midnight on Friday night and only emerged on Monday.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)