It’s a common story right now: ‘stranded overseas travellers’ begging the Australian and New Zealand governments to ‘rescue’ them from their plight.
We might be inclined to take them more seriously if it weren’t that so many of them appear to be victims of nothing more than their own hubris and stupidity. Despite official government travel warnings, thousands of Australians and New Zealanders decided to jet off on that overseas holiday anyway.
Why been bothered with personal responsibility when the ‘gummint’ is always there to bail you out of the consequences of your own stupidity?
The Australian government, at least, isn’t having any such bullshit.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hit out at 16,000 Australians who decided to travel overseas in defiance of the highest level of government advice.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued “do not travel” advice for every country in the world because of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.
Mr Morrison said he was bewildered and frustrated by the wilful defiance people displayed.
It shouldn’t be so bewildering. After all, we’ve cultivated a culture with the expectation that, no matter what, the nanny state is always there to rescue idiots from the consequences of their own stupidity. Whether its fools who go bushwalking in Tasmania without proper gear or food, in defiance of weather warnings, secure in the knowledge that a rescue chopper is just a mobile phone call away, or bogans who smuggle drugs into hardline Asian countries and then cry for consular intervention, too many have the expectation that ‘the gummint should do sumfin’.
Maybe this time they’re hard out of luck.
In the early days of the Xi plague, the Morrison government was generous in helping Australians overseas come home. But, once it laid down the do-not-travel law, anyone stupid enough to ignore that advice is getting short shrift.
The prime minister issued a warning for travellers ignoring advice.
“Those who go overseas over this period, how they actually think they’re going to get back now is going to be very difficult,” he said.
“I don’t think they’ll find themselves high on the list.”
Many of my own family were planning a big trip back to the ‘old country’ later this year. My sister-in-law cancelled in early February. Given her husband’s age and history of emphysema, trading a few grand in airfares against the risk of an almost-certainly-fatal coronavirus infection was a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, there are just too many no-brainers who think it’s the government’s job to save them from themselves, no matter what.
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