The objective of this audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s overseas crisis management and response arrangements in meeting the government’s objectives for returning Australians from overseas in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The objective of this audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Australian government's management of international travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This review report finds that Australia has had remarkable success in managing COVID-19. Our island nation status, early decisions to manage arrivals, and prompt and effective action by public health officials, together with widespread public cooperation, have been key to this success.

This paper argues that as state governments begin trialling home quarantine programs, they need to take active steps to ensure they are not crossing a new frontier in the surveillance of citizens by using facial recognition technology.

The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has claimed that the hotel quarantine system designed to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Australia from returning overseas travellers is 99.9 per cent effective. The verdict: Mr Morrison's claim is spin.