Australians returning to Australia are subject to mandatory quarantine under police and army guard; why were the 30,000 Chinese students who returned in February 2020 not subject to the same?

by Ganeh Sahathevan 

Returning overseas travellers are ushered into Sydney's InterContinental Hotel for the beginning of their 14-day imposed quarantine on Sunday 

Even Nine/Fairfax owned SMH was compelled to report on 12 March 2020:

A third of the 106,000 Chinese students initially trapped offshore by the coronavirus travel ban have made their way to Australia after waiting out their 14-day isolation periods in third countries.

Since mid-February, 31,196 Chinese students have landed in Australia, Department of Home Affairs figures show. In recent weeks, up to 1000 students a day have been arriving to start or return to their studies.

Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia and chair of the global reputation taskforce co-ordinating the response to the coronavirus, said it was not surprising students were doing whatever they could to return to Australia.

"We are talking about young people who have invested an incredible amount of time and finances into getting an education outcome from an Australian university or other provider," he said.

Some universities, including Western Sydney University, the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University, have helped students with travel and other costs incurred by the disruption.

....Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram said Chinese students returning via third countries "did what we wanted them to do" by quarantining themselves.

Border Force has not provided any evidence of how it monitored the students.Yet now Australians returning to Australia are subject to quarantine under police and army guard, and criminal penalties.

Given the Ruby Princess debacle,Australians are entitled to know why the Morrison Government did not subject the Chinese students to the same quarantine orders.
Importantly we are entitled to know how the Chinese students and other visitors from China have or have not contributed to the Wuhan Virus contagion.


END

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ABC timeline of Wuhan Virus illustrates clearly how Virus was brought into Queensland by Chinese from Wuhan as early as Jan 21 2020: State & Cth negligent in not imposing mandatory quarantine in January

Covid-19 heightens public right to know, currently frustrated by civil servants producing documents behind cloak of immunity, on-line harassment laws,and digital document scrubbing: Only significant class actions against NSW & Cth Govt can ensure public fully informed