Late last year, the NSW Government lodged a plan to use one third of its 3,000 hotel quarantine places to import international students, with universities (read taxpayers) to pick up the cost of quarantine.
The plan was later abandoned after the state was hit with the New Year COVID outbreak, as well as backlash from stranded Australians.
In May 2021, the NSW Government announced that it would begin accepting international students into separate quarantine facilities within months, again subsidised by universities (read taxpayers):
