Tim Dower: People not getting checked for pre-departure tests is incompetence

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Jul 13, 2021 · 2m

Would it surprise you to find out that the requirement for pre-departure COVID tests is only being checked on a random basis?

It surprised me.

As I'm sure you know, under the travel bubble, anyone coming from Australia is meant to have negative test in the 72 hours before flying.

Now, you might have thought this was being checked before people get on the plane, but as we've reported earlier this week, more than 50 people have been caught without one.

How so?

Well, it turns out that Customs is dealing with this by what it calls "random validation."

In other words, not everyone is being…