Lockdown 5.0 is politically motivated and unnecessary

Lockdown 5.0 is politically motivated and absolutely unnecessary, driven by Labor’s fear they’ll make another tragic blunder.

This lockdown, now extended another seven days across Victoria, is sheer madness. It is causing more “deaths” than the virus it has been imposed to address and is politically motivated.

In the year to date we have lost 120 lives on our roads, an average of just over four a week. Successive governments have spent billions on road safety measures, as have car manufacturers, so we allow people to drive accepting there will be at least four deaths a week, and multiple serious injuries. We do not lock down the state.

Premier Daniel Andrews’ government is afraid of making a mistake they’ll be held responsible for. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

In 2020 there were 699 suspected deaths by suicide in Victoria, and yet we spend millions of dollars trying to prevent such a loss. We do not lock down the state.

In the last figures I have seen in the calendar year to October 6, 2019, more than 800 influenza deaths had occurred in Australia. Given Victoria has about 24 per cent of the nation’s population, that figure might represent around 200 Victorians, and yet a large number of us have flu injections every year. We do not lock down the state.

The only time we have witnessed more deaths was when the Victorian government so totally botched the administration of its hotel quarantine delivery. For which no minister accepted any responsibility, and all ministers when questioned by the limp inquiry pleaded loss of memory, and were allowed to get away with those non-answers.

The truth is since last year hopefully even our government has improved its administration of all things associated with Covid-19.

Melbourne’s latest lockdown is unnecessary. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Remember we were told last year we had to go into lockdown to ensure our hospitals were not overrun. Well, they were not then, and have hardly been called upon this year.

Two things have happened. After its tragic blunder last year, the government has taken to hiding behind the advice of a very few health and medical advisers. If you believe the argument, “we are only acting on health advice”, that is simply an excuse.

The government is afraid of making a mistake for which it will be held responsible. Or our politicians have no confidence in themselves, the people they have charged to manage the pandemic, or the systems they have in place. If they did, we would not be in lockdown.

The second factor is these lockdowns now, in the face of very few identified cases, which once identified have correctly led to isolation, are a political exercise. Of control over a community that just continues to accept unchallenged the reasoning for these lockdowns, an ineffectual Opposition, and a media which, with a few exceptions, simply fails to “keep the bastards honest”. They are subservient apologists for this government’s abuse of authority.

The proof of this being a political exercise is contained in a report in The Australian on the July 13 by journalist Damon Johnston (a good member of the fourth estate) that itemised in detail how the Andrews government had spent $2m on “a large-scale program at the height of last year’s Covid-19 crisis to monitor Victorian’s reaction to lockdown restrictions and score the government’s performance out of 10, including its leadership, in tackling the pandemic”.

This latest lockdown is political. It is absolutely unnecessary.

Staff at a Covid-19 testing site at Albert Park. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

If the Premier were to walk down any strip shopping centre, he would see carnage. Shops for sale, for lease, closed. Behind each of those shopfronts are individuals and families, many of whom have built their business up over decades, handed down from one generation to another. Business killed by these rolling lockdowns. Families’ assets destroyed.

For those businesses that do not have shopfronts, but are in the hospitality, tourism, or entertainment sector, sadly many have already died. Others are struggling to survive due to the continuing charges applied to them by landlords, governments and utilities, and increased debts and interest charges.

This government has deliberately decided to ignore its responsibility to govern for all Victorians. Take advice, and then weigh up the advantages and cost of any action it might take.

Forget if you will for a moment the economic and reputational cost to the state, think about the “deaths” that are occurring to so many parts of Victoria’s rich tapestry of life. The potential lifetime costs to so many young children because two years of their education and social development have been so disrupted that they have lost the desire for learning.

So, what should happen? We should all get vaccinated.

But what is the government’s target, at which point lockdowns will not be imposed and we will simply manage the cases that emerge? Is it 60, 75, 80, 90 or 100 per cent? Surely, we are entitled to know. NSW appears to have set a target of 62 per cent.

If ours is 100 per cent, we are doomed to lockdown after lockdown. If it is 75 per cent, there will still be outbreaks, but we can manage that.

The government should tell us what the target is, to give us an incentive to get vaccinated as quickly as possible to eliminate the perceived need for future lockdowns.

Until then we should be able to go about our business wearing masks everywhere except in our own homes. I do not even mind, although it is inconvenient, wearing masks when outside, walking. It is a small price to pay to keep our villages, cities and state open for business and our children learning. We should make it socially unacceptable not to wear a mask.

I am sick and tired of being told we are saving hundreds of lives by having these lockdowns. If our contact tracing is up to scratch, we can manage this virus. What we can’t do is have these rolling lockdowns.

Sadly, our government does not even want to try. It is taking the easy option, locking us all down.

Yes, I am frustrated, because I know we can and must do better.

Have a good day.