Covid Inquiry must consider lockdowns and international travel ban

As the hardest hit sector in Australia’s economy as a result of COVID lockdowns and the international travel ban, the Travel Sector supports the Austalian Human Rights Commission in its calls for a widening of the inquiry’s terms to include lockdowns and border closures. 
ATIA will also be including a call in our submission for the review to look at the substantial issues in Austrade’s handling of the distribution of Consumer Travel Support Grant funds of $270 Million.

• Australia’s travel agents and businesses experienced massive revenue falls of 95% plus on the closure of Australia’s international border on 20 March 2020
• Travel businesses spent COVID with no income due to international travel shutdown chasing $10Billion in credits and refunds on behalf of their customers
• A third of our workforce, 15,000 jobs, were lost while the complexity of chasing refunds was massively increased
• The on-going open/shut of state borders further added significant burden

Travel is still recovering. ATIA’s submission to the Senate Committee Inquiry into Bilateral Air Service Agreements noted that international fares are still massively elevated. Flights from Sydney for example are still up to 99% higher than pre-COVID, due to a lack of competition and capacity.

ATIA CEO Dean Long said: “The terms of the inquiry are a good starting point but we ask that the Government expand the terms of reference to consider the biggest source of impact on our sector – border closures and lockdowns.”
“Australia deserves a unified national approach and the review, in looking at what worked and what didn’t, needs to look at those decisions that had the most significant impact on people’s lives which was the restriction of movement. That needs to be front and centre of any review.”
“Speak to any travel agent or business still operating today and they have a war story about the multiple complex problems in Austrade’s management of the Consumer Travel Support Grant funds from design to implementation. The process for so many of our members was frustrating and and the approach not fit-for-the purpose. Austrade has done a review but hasn’t released it. That needs to be considered by this review as there’s absolutely no doubt that there are lessons to be learnt from the processes and approach adopted by the government of the day and the department at the time.”