Boxing Day Test crowd figure is no reward for our hard work

Limiting the Boxing Day Test to 30,000 will save as many lives as the curfew - zero. It’s not a reward, it’s a turd wrapped in tinsel.

How mean.

A 30,000 limit on the Boxing Day MCG crowd is exactly 70,024 fewer than it ought to be.

Yesterday, the state government announced that slightly more people than the expected 25,000 could go to the Test against India.

It was presented like a gift. Merry Christmas, the message went. You have earned this generous reward.

Others might read the play a different way. Call it a turd wrapped in tinsel.

Sports Minister Martin Pakula cited the advice of chief medical officer, Brett Sutton, for what is just the latest mealy-mouthed easing of a restriction.

This year’s Boxing Day Test crowd will be capped at 30,000.

Pakula did not explain how 30,000 is safer than the full capacity of 100,024.

It’s hard to see the difference.

After 40-something days of no new cases, squeezing 120,000 into the ground appears to offer no greater virus threat than having no one there.

The problem for Pakula and his government is that every Victorian is an expert now.

We have lived in lockdown for months of this year, our lives and livelihoods dictated by this or that decision.

We have absorbed the examples of other places.

We are guided by the data.

And we know that Victorians suffered for government decisions that ignored the science.

Here, again, we are being punished with overreaching notions of caution, though we should be pleased that someone didn’t think to limit the players as well as the crowd to 30 per cent, thereby reducing the game to two batsman and 1.3 bowlers per team.

Just to be safe, you know.

About 70,000 fans will miss out on tickets to the Test. Picture: AAP

Limiting the MCG crowd to 30,000 will save exactly the same number of people as instituting a curfew.

Zero.

We know this because Sydney has suffered from the same coronavirus threat.

There, too, officialdom made dreadful mistakes.

Yet that state learned to successfully combat outbreaks more than six months ago.

They have full capacity at events in Sydney where they have the odd case here and there and yet – miracle alert – the world does not stop.

The SCG heaved with fans for the T-20 a few days ago.

The NRL grand final in October hosted 40,000, and Queensland dared to stage a mask-free State of Origin fixture.

No one got COVID-19 at these events.

Victoria has been preoccupied with combating the virus all year.

That the government cannot shed its draconian default, in response to threats real or imagined, once again stamps the state as inexplicably cautious.

It’s time for the new number plate – Victoria: The Nanny Mask State.

Why help the recovery when you can hinder it?

Victorians have begged for consistency with coronavirus restrictions.

This decision is like so many others, from 5km limits on travel to the staging of a Melbourne Cup with an official attendance of zero.

Consistently mean.

We await details for the Australian Open tennis.

Will ballboys be deemed too dangerous?