Lockdowns aren't working: Flight Centre's Graham Turner, travel bosses ask for end to restrictions

Luna Park in St Kilda is shuttered during lockdown restrictions, currently in place across Melbourne. Photo / Getty Images, Asanka Ratnayake

Two of the leading figures in Australia's travel industry have hit out at Australia and New Zealand's tough stance on hard lockdowns.

Graham Turner, founder of Flight Centre Travel Group, and package holiday boss Adam Schwab of Luxury Escapes published an open letter in The Australian yesterday, begging for the countries to come to their senses.

Published at the same time as NSW reported another day of record case numbers in Sydney, the opinion piece argued the downsides had far outweighed the benefits of the two countries' travel restrictions.

Looking to the international community for guidance, they said the reaction of Denmark - with a comparable daily infections rate to New South Wales of 1000 - was not to lock down again but to remove all remaining Covid-19 restrictions.

"While most of the world has come to its senses, Australia and New Zealand are not quite there yet."

Sweden, they say, which has had moderate restrictions has suffered far fewer excess deaths per million than other EU countries that had opted for "hard" lockdowns.

The thrust of the travel bosses' argument is the impossibility of quantifying what has been saved through hard lockdowns from the costs to the countries. Citing only "secret Victorian data" they say emergency callouts had doubled for mental health related incidents.

"Elective and non-elective surgeries have been delayed, leading to likely excess mortality," they said.

Distancing themselves from the "foolishness" of anti-lockdown protests across Australia, they say the restrictions on "human rights" is the most under-reported effect of the lockdowns.
The loaded question posed by the two travel agency bosses was "when do our basic human rights become secondary to a viral pandemic?"

On this side of the Tasman Flight Centre New Zealand managing director David Combes said lockdowns had been effective, but had their limitations.

"We understand the importance of lockdowns in curbing the current and past outbreaks of Covid-19," Coombes said in a statement.

"New Zealand needs to continue to strive towards a vaccination rate where lockdowns are no longer necessary to combat the virus. Comparatively to other OECD countries, our vaccination rates in NZ and Australia are low. It is vital that we increase these rates to get to a place by Christmas this year where lockdowns no longer happen," he said.

This is not the first time the travel agency had voiced strong opinions on handling pandemic restrictions.

In May Turner told NewsHub's AM show that the death of "the odd person" might be a bearable cost for returning travel to pre-Covid levels.