Mornington Peninsula fight for freedom from lockdown rages on despite new coronavirus cases
Mornington Peninsula can no longer claim to be virus free, but that hasn’t taken the heat out of a push to end the lockdown. The man behind a petition to release the region explains why.
South East
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The fight to free the Mornington Peninsula from lockdown is continuing, despite the region recording its first active cases in weeks.
A petition against the decision to include the peninsula in the Stage 3 restrictions has collected 5368 signatures in just four days.
It followed a plea from business owners who said the second lockdown would jeopardise their chance of surviving the economic fall out.
Bittern man Lane Prowd started collecting signatures online on Friday, after returning from an essential visit to Sydney.
“I had to go to Sydney for the day on Thursday. It was for a client for a legal reason; so essential travel,” Mr Prowd said.
“Once I landed and it became clear I was from a locked down Melbourne suburb I was made to feel like an outcast in my own country.”
He said the attention from health officers and police at the airport was “a shock”.
“We hadn’t had an active case on the Mornington Peninsula for weeks but I was still facing that scrutiny because the region is locked down.”
When he returned home Mr Prowd decided to take action.
The support for the petition was a surprise.
“I thought I’d be doing well if I got two or three hundred people signing,” he said.
“To have several thousand in the first day or so was amazing.”
He planned to send the petition to Premier Daniel Andrews on Tuesday.
“At the very least I want an explanation as to why the Mornington Peninsula was included.
“I feel like it was just lumped in as part of Greater Melbourne, without any analysis.”
On Monday the first active coronavirus case since late May was recorded on the peninsula.
A second was recorded on Tuesday.
But Mr Prowd said the argument to exclude the region from the lockdown had merit.
“Geelong currently has five (active) cases, and Bendigo four while continuing to be exempt,” he said.
“We have shown since the first lockdown here on the Mornington Peninsula we can successfully operate with appropriate social distancing.”
Liberal Democrats MP for South East Metropolitan, David Limbrick backed the ongoing Mornington Peninsula push to end the lockdown and suggested it be widened to cover all of south east Melbourne.
“The latest maps show that COVID-19 cases are overwhelmingly to the north and north west of Melbourne,” Mr Limbrick said.
“In the meantime, this is devastating hundreds of businesses in areas … that are relatively free of the disease.”
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