It is worth noting that a recent survey showed a vast majority of Australians preferring closed borders as we have been relatively unscathed from COVID.
Of course they do, but as with most other human rights declarations, these rules are there to protect the minority, not the majority.
That's not clear.
Democracy protects the majority (but not always the minority); in an absence of democracy, the majority are also vulnerable to breaches of human rights.
As long as a country allows a citizen to leave, it doesn't matter if it's also against local laws. It simply means that the person should expect punishment if they were to ever return.
Additionally, there aren’t many commercial flights right now, resulting in the government needing to supplement these with charter flights (but needing to balance this with not further overloading quarantine facilities). Some people have been waiting six months or more to find a flight home or to get onto a charter flight. There are constant news stories about desperate people who are trapped with no way to fly back.
So, the government has decided you need a permit to leave, either stating you have no intention to return in the medium-term, need to leave for compassionate reasons, or have an urgent need to travel.
I entirely disagree with the policy. People should be free to leave, but then if they can’t find a flight home, that’s their issue.
However, the government seems concerned about the optics of seeing people on the nightly news, crying that the government won’t give them a seat on a charter flight.