Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly don't understand the OZ approach as of today. We have immediate family there (sister in law) and are unable to visit. Heck we even would go to quarantine for 14 days in order to see them afterwards for a couple of weeks and/or some longer travels. The current situation where ~25'000 Australians are still unable to get back home makes no sense to me. Even leaving Australia for personal travel is not really…
They've determined that the risk of quarantine scales with the quantity of people going through it. Given the entirety of the current outbreak has been traced back to quarantine failures, this is somewhat understandable.
As you noted both quarantine and testing is imperfect. I have no desire to open the doors and have a repeat of Iceland or Victoria writ large. Yes, I'm disappointed at not seeing overseas friends and family for (at least) the next year or two. But that seems like a relatively small price to pay for the relative quiet, healthy, functioning society here.