The federal government insists it is exhausting every avenue to get more than 32,300 Australians stranded overseas home but can't say how many will be back by Christmas.
At the moment, 5575 international arrivals are allowed each week into Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, with the state governments saying that is the upper limit of what their hotel quarantine systems can take.
The first Australians on new repatriation flights will arrive at the Howard Springs quarantine facility on Friday.Credit:Ben Sale
A deal with the Northern Territory to accommodate 500 people a fortnight at the Howard Springs mining camp near Darwin is about to start, with the first government-arranged Qantas flight due to arrive from London on Friday.
Officials from the Prime Minister's department said on Tuesday the Commonwealth was in negotiations with the Victorian government to resume international flights into Melbourne, which they described as a "game-changer". Before its second wave of coronavirus and the cancellation of international flights, the city was taking more than a quarter of the nation's international arrivals.
As well, opening up a travel bubble with New Zealand had freed up about 15 per cent of the hotel quarantine capacity in Sydney.
But department officials could not answer repeated questions from Labor Senate leader Penny Wong about how many Australians would have to return each week to get everyone home by Christmas. Nor could they say when they expected everyone to be able to return.
"The objective is to get 4000 home, all the vulnerable Australians and as many as possible, ideally every single Australian who wants to come home, and we are working towards that objective," one senior official said. "It's quite a complex equation but everything is being exhausted to try and find capacity to bring Australians home."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last month he hoped to get as many people as possible home by Christmas.
The department's modelling was based on the 26,800 people who wanted to return to Australia at that time.
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