Comparatively, Australia has successfully responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Case numbers have remained low, efficient travel restrictions, quarantine, and contact tracing measures have been put in place. This essay will argue that Australia’s border security response to the pandemic has been shaped by the country’s characteristics as a federal settler state that is also an isolated island of the Southern hemisphere with a complex relationship to Asia.

As an isolated island, Australia has a long tradition of strict border and biosecurity control, including use of quarantine. Such measures were considered part of the national identity and racialized until the end of the ‘White Australia policy’. Strict border and epidemiological control have remained strongly legitimate to the public though family separations through travel restrictions as well as shaming of Asian communities seen as responsible for the pandemic have been criticized. Constitutionally, the federal level is responsible for border controls, yet states and territories play a significant role in implementation. Beyond the international headlines focusing on Australia’s pandemic response success, there has been tensions between the federal and the state level, as well as between states, regarding oversight over travellers’ entry control and interstate travel restrictions. Still, the pandemic has led to the reorganising of coordination mechanisms between federal and state levels.