Coronavirus has shown Australian travellers have too high expectations of how the Government can help

Are private hospitals nationalised? Not something I have ever thought about. :)

I just saw it on channel 7 news.
1000s of workers at private hospitals were about to be stood down due to lack of work -
until the Govt. stepped in to pay their wages.
I could understand the move made by Dan if the public hospitals were overloaded but
there are hardly any Coronavirus patients.
The whole saga is being made up as policy on the run -
worked out on the back of beer coasters.
It's obvious that no thought went into the new rules forced on to private hospitals
and the unintended consequences.
I wonder if it was even legal to basically nationalise private hospitals?
I suppose that the Govt. wasn't going to get every move right?
Let's hope they don't make more stuff ups with people's lives that are unnecessary.

Whingeing Aussies!  Imagine what they would do if they had been just sent home to "self isolate"? Perhaps we should just send them to Christmas Island or something instead of a 5-star hotel?

'Stop whingeing': Blunt message to returned travellers quarantined inside luxury hotels as some are heard 'yelling and banging on walls' complaining about the food

Travellers returning to Australia and being forced to quarantine in luxury hotels have been told they need a reality check after complaining of inadequate conditions. 
Thousands of Australians arriving into the country by plane and ship are being transported to makeshift quarantine facilities under the escort of police and military personnel. 
The government is using the country's vacant hotels to isolate new arrivals, with about two-thirds of the country's COVID-19 cases traced to people who had travelled overseas. 
The guests have been complaining of sub-standard food, small room sizes, and being locked indoors with no fresh-air.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8164447/Stop-whingeing-Blunt-message-returned-travellers-quarantined-luxury-hotels.html

Coronavirus has shown Australian travellers have too high expectations of how the Government can help

The coronavirus has revealed some disturbing conflicts and unpleasant traits in the national Australian character as Australians find themselves under pressure at home and abroad.
Australians have prided themselves on their resilience, mateship, adventurous spirit and rugged individualism. These traits were displayed with pride in the recent bushfire crisis which now seems a distant memory.
Yet it is disturbing in the current crisis to see these qualities recede to an equally distant past.
Australians are a travelling nation of individuals. Around 1 million of us live permanently abroad.
Last year Australians took more than 11 million trips overseas. They are seeking adventure in far-flung places. Older people are travelling more; younger generations are also taking advantage of cheap airfares to exotic locations. Mostly, this is an immensely positive experience.
Today, everything has changed.

Trapped far from home

There are currently almost 700 Australians in various parts of Peru, a number of whom desperately want to come home. Most travelled there for adventure and a foreign experience. The rapid escalation of the COVID-19 virus has seen closed borders, banned aircraft, flights cancelled, airlines crippled.
But those travellers, who no doubt pride themselves generally on their rugged individualism and resilience, now seek government assistance to rescue them from an impossible situation of their own creation.
Gone is the resilience; in its place are cries for help, along the lines of "where is the helicopter to get me to Lima"; "where is the government-sponsored Qantas flight to get me home?", and "why should I pay more to get out of here"?
"The Australian embassy (in Lima) is closed. The embassy has been no help," one tourist is reported to have complained from Peru.
Worse, some Australians boarded cruise ships after explicit government advice on March 9 against cruise travel, particularly for older travellers with health issues.
Borders were closed on March 15 to international cruise arrivals in Australia. We all know what happened then.
There is to be no repeat of the Ruby Princess; we won't allow sick cruise passengers to disembark in Australia.
But the same rules don't apply to Australians on ships abroad.
One foreign-flagged cruise ship, the Norwegian Jewel, was allowed to dock in Honolulu, after Australia worked furiously with friendly countries to negotiate with US authorities to override American port closures.
The Australians on board have now flown home on a chartered Qantas flight. And that is just one of the 20-odd cruise ships carrying more than 2,500 Australian leisure-cruisers currently at sea.

It's impossible to help everyone

With so many Australians living and travelling abroad, it is literally impossible to repatriate each one of them in such a crisis, as Foreign Minister Marise Payne has warned. There is no magic wand, and in some cases there is little the Government can do.
Yet the government, and its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has not stopped trying.
It recognises Australians are facing real hardship far from home, and is doing everything it can to help, regardless of ill-timed decisions to travel.
According to senior officials, the department has made a "huge pivot" to do everything in its power to assist even those who have travelled against explicit government advice. It has activated its emergency call centre fielding thousands of calls; put staff on night shifts to "shadow" struggling diplomats attempting to operate in different time-zones with hobbled offices.
Spare a thought for those officers who heeded their employers' advice and sent their families home while that window remained open to them.
They are now alone, some of them sick, unsupported by family, facing health dangers themselves in places where the crisis is at its most acute, working extended hours in self-isolation with locked-down offices.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-29/coronavirus-australian-travellers-need-too-much-from-government/12096460