Returning travellers to be forced to pay at least $3,000 for their two-week hotel quarantine when arriving from overseas
- Travellers returning to NSW to pay up to $5,000 for hotel quarantine cost
- International arrivals have been put up in accommodation free of charge
- Families charged $3,000 for one adult, $500 for kids and $1,000 for extra adults
Travellers returning to New South Wales from overseas will pay upwards of $5,000 to complete mandatory quarantine inside secure hotels.
Up until this point, any international arrivals have been put up in accommodation free of charge to wait out the two week incubation period for coronavirus.
But New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday announced the tax funding would draw to a close given how long Australians had to return home.
‘Australian residents have been given plenty of time to return home, and we feel it is only fair that they cover some of the costs of their hotel accommodation,’ Ms Berejiklian said.
Travellers returning to New South Wales from overseas will pay upwards of $5,000 to complete mandatory quarantine inside secure hotels. Pictured: Returned traveller in mandatory isolation in Travelodge
Returned travellers will be paying for the accommodation and their food, but the travel costs to and from the hotel and security will be covered
Families will be charged $3,000 for one adult, $1,000 for each additional adult and $500 per child over three, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
All children under three will not be accounted for in the total bill.
That means a family of four – two adults and two children – will fork out $5,000 to quarantine for the two weeks.
The changes will come into effect for anybody who purchases their flights home after 11.59pm on July 12.
For people who purchased their flights before the cutoff day, they will not have to pay no matter when their flight actually lands in Sydney.
Passengers off a Melbourne to Sydney flight arrive at Sydney domestic airport on July 7
Returning overseas travellers are ushered into the InterContinental Hotel for the beginning of their 14-day imposed quarantine. They will now have to pay for their own stay
The money will cover costs of the hotel stay and all food, while the government will still foot the security bill.
Queensland has already started charging returned travellers, and Victoria has temporarily suspended flights into the state carrying overseas arrivals in order to redeploy resources into fighting the current COVID-19 outbreak.
Families will be given the invoice at the end of the quarantine period and special consideration will be given to those who encounter financial hardship.
Stuart Ayres,the New South Wales minister responsible for hotel quarantine, said most of the new cases in the state had come from returned travellers.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday announced the tax funding would draw to a close given how long Australians had to return home
Passengers from Cambodia pictured boarding buses to take them to isolation in April at the height of the crisis
Five of the seven cases identified in New South Wales on Saturday were in returned travellers.
‘NSW Police, NSW Health officials and the accommodation industry will continue to work together to provide the nation’s leading hotel quarantine system,’ he said.
It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced he would slash international flights into the country by half to stop the spread of coronavirus and ease the pressure on the hotel quarantine program.
He announced the cap following a National Cabinet meeting on Friday, and said it would reduce the amount of people arriving in Australia by about 4,000 per week.
‘Flights will be cut by just over half across all the various ports that are taking those residents returning to Australia,’ Mr Morrison said.