Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We are doing everything that we are able to do within the flights available, within the quarantine places available and within the caps to bring as many Australians home as we can. Since that meeting on 18 September, 40,800 Australians have returned from overseas. I very much hope that families such as the one that Senator Keneally has referred to are able to do that, and we will continue to provide them with appropriate consular support through this process, because it is a very difficult situation.

We are dealing with, as I have remarked before and as I know others have remarked, a global pandemic, which has impacted our ability to return Australians from overseas. It's impacted by flights; it's impacted by quarantine space. We have opened Howard Springs. We have accommodated 500 returning Australians in Howard Springs as part of that process. (Time expired)