Jeff Kennett: Questions Premier Daniel Andrews needs to answer about lockdown

It’s time the Premier started thinking what 2022 in Victoria going to look like? Will he abandon his elimination dream and live with the virus? We need leadership, not inflexibility.

It is a sadness, that after 19 months we are still talking, writing, and having our lives disrupted by COVID-19.

For 25 per cent of the population the disruption is crippling. For many being educated, the impact may affect their whole lives.

Seventy five of us are being inconvenienced but will get through this period.

This lockdown, and or severe restrictions, will be with us at least until mid-December or even into the New Year.

Unless the Premier changes the tack he has been pursuing since the virus arrived on our shores.

Elimination was never achievable! The virus, already existing in several different mutations is here to stay, in Australia and around the world for some and maybe many years.

Therefore, we must live and manage how we live with the virus.

For the damage being done within our community is much more dangerous than the virus itself.

A person walks past a deserted Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne's CBD during the state's latest lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Let me be quite clear. I do not blame the Premier or the Government for the virus.

I am very critical of the way they have single-mindedly managed our response to the virus.

It has been one dimensional. Elimination at all costs. It has ignored the competing interests within our society.

I will not go through the social and economic damage again that this approach is costing us today, and well into the future.

Rather, I wish to again restress the need to relax some of the current restrictions, to start rebuilding our lifestyle where it is justified.

Even with vaccination levels at 80% or 100% there will still be outbreaks of the virus, and as we are seeing worldwide, vaccination is no guarantee a person will not still attract the virus, but in most cases where it does, it will not be life threatening.

So, a couple of examples of what we could be doing now.

1. The Victorian government has closed preschools for all but a few!

Why could not fully vaccinated Grandparents be not allowed to care for young grandchildren to assist their children and give the Grandparents the enjoyment with family they seek?

2. Why cannot those who are fully vaccinated not be able to attend restaurants, theatres, tourism venues, shops where the staff of those venues are also fully vaccinated?

3. Again, why can’t the fully vaccinated be allowed to attend sporting venues, after submitting themselves to Rapid Testing at the venue they wish to attend?

We should not have lost again for the second year the AFL Grand Final. We have done so because the government has again failed to exhibit any flexibility. Rapid testing is used by some of Australia’s biggest companies and was used to allow the Wimbledon tennis event to be staged in front of full stadiums. It should be used here.

4. Why cannot fully vaccinated families welcome fully vaccinated guests in small numbers, couples, other family members to their home?

If the government allowed some flexibility, that will be an incentive for others to get vaccinated.

Premier Daniel Andrews is yet to unveil how Victoria will reopen.

Is this not what the Premier will have to allow when the 80 per cent target he has set for Victorians is reached? He will have to allow us to live with the virus. Or will he?

There is no reward for those Victorians who have done the right thing since the first lockdown. In fact, quite the reverse. There has been for many unmeasurable pain.

The Government must start to re-open our lifestyle.

Perhaps the biggest question relates to our children’s education. They may still be paying the biggest price for the now almost two years of disruptions and lockdowns.

The truth is, even when we get to 80% vaccination, we will still have to live with this virus in the community in one form or another. Overseas experience is that the virus is re-emerging among those vaccinated and among children. Is it not time the Premier started discussing with the community, or even the Parliament if he allows it to sit again, how we are going to manage the future? What is 2022 in Victoria going to look like? Will Daniel Andrews abandon his elimination approach and live with the virus?

What is the Premier’s plan for when we reach 80%? We should be starting now to prepare the community for the future.

Victorians need leadership not blind inflexibility.

The same applies at a national level. When will we open our borders again? Will we Australians fully vaccinated be able to travel overseas? Will we have to go into quarantine on our return and for how long? How will we manage people from overseas travelling to Australia? There are so many questions that require answers. We are only 16 weeks until the new year 2022.

Or are we going to continue with lockdowns here in Victoria until the New Year as I have been told.

Students are Victoria still don’t know when they will return to school. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

We are all greatly in debt to those who are working long hours, and often at great personal risk in our health systems and hospitals. Many who now have been stood down because they are working in hot spots, which in turn put more pressure on those still able to work.

As we are indebted to our officers in the police force. Again, working long hours, manning our borders, patrolling our streets.

They should not be exposed to the violence that has been directed at them in last week’s demonstrations.

Such violence is totally unacceptable and is rejected by all fair-minded Victorians. Given we are in a State of Emergency, those responsible must be held to account.

Finally, I remain optimistic, given everything that is happening, with the right settings in place, we will get through this period in our lives and history.

But I repeat again, when we have had Royal Commissions into all manner of issues in the last few years, why the Commonwealth has not established one now into the leanings, the best practices of how the nation has responded to this pandemic is beyond me. Not to apportion blame but to identify best practice and to leave an aide memoirs for future generations and when the world, country and State is confronted by the next pandemic.

But right now, we have the right to know what we can expect in 2022. The planning must start now.

Have a good day all.

Jeff Kennett is a former Premier of Victoria