Thread: Report: Look after yourself !

The ultra conservative Lowy Institute in Australia has released a report urging the government to lower Australians expectations of consular help if they get into trouble overseas.

"The Federal Government has put a strong emphasis on helping those Australians whose travel plans go wrong for various reasons, but recently there have been signs that this may have gone too far."

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/PublicationGet.asp?i=695

There is also an article in the Sydney morning herald here.

Look after yourself - Travel - smh.com.au

Apart from the 'interesting' point of view that people that get into trouble overseas were deliberately setting out to be killed, injured, robbed or imprissoned the ong term aim of this document seems to be the limiting of consular help in the future.

While the report speaks of lowering the publics expectations it ties this to the amount of time the consular officals have to preform 'wider national interests'. Perhaps the reports author would prefer if Australians turned to other Commonweath nations for help ?

Mark