Australians stranded in India will be able to come home from mid-May after repatriation flights resume.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the three-week pause on flights has worked to slow the rate of COVID-19 infections in quarantine and the first flight into Darwin will touch down on May 15.
COVID-19 supplies for India being loaded into a Qantas plane earlier this week.
“That biosecurity order is working as exactly as it was intended to, and that will remain in place with no change until 15 May,” Mr Morrison said on Friday morning.
“National Security Committee of Cabinet has confirmed that it will have done its job by then, and as a result we see no need to extend it beyond that date.”
Three repatriation flights will land in Darwin in May bringing back the “most urgent of cases”, the Prime Minister said.
More to come
Rachel Clun is a federal political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, covering health.