The announcement that the Australian government would restart flights from India has been met with relief, but one Hunter advocate who was previously stuck in India believes it's too little and too late.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that the flight ban, which began on May 3, would end on its scheduled date of May 15, with three repatriation flights this month to bring back the most urgent cases. He said 1000 people were expected to arrive home before the end of June.
There are currently 9000 Australian citizens stuck in India who want to come home, including 900 who are considered vulnerable.
Belmont's Deb Tellis, who spent 10 months trying to get home from India, said the government's announcement just wasn't enough.
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She gave evidence to a Senate hearing on Friday and said she was left with little confidence in the government's plan to bring all stranded Australians home.
"Shame on them for not having a long term plan," she said. "I can't believe they can come to a Senate hearing with only three definite flights and maybe three commercial flights.
"There are 173 kids over there [without their parents], 900 vulnerable.
"It's way too late. I'm sad that we're meeting over this today when both the government and the Australian High Commission know full well people haven't been able to get out since March 2020. They should have been getting people out a long time ago
"It's still not enough and it's a year too late. They're going to see people dead. An Australian resident died yesterday."
Ms Tellis said she had suffered culture shock since arriving back to Australia, seeing the government offer stimulus measures which had helped people buy new cars and do home renovations while leaving its own people stuck overseas.
"It's staggering," she said. "I've had my eyes opened over the past year to how politics work."
Indian Association of Newcastle president Ajay Rana said he believed the announcement was a positive first step.
"I'm happy flights will be resumed and the government is making efforts to bring people home," he said. "It could be better but I believe it's a good start to begin with.
"It's great to know none of the people were penalised for trying to come home."
Mr Rana said he understood the reasoning behind bringing back a small portion of people to begin with. He said the situation in India was still very worrying, but was looking a touch more promising than a week ago.
"The government has to be cautious," he said. "They don't want the facilities to be overwhelmed."
"Not many details of plan have come out. With three flights to start with, it's going to take a long time to get everyone home.
"But once more details are released I think people will feel better."
