Rita Panahi: Clueless, clumsy and cruel now the standard in Victoria

It’s shameful and unjustifiable that Victorian bureaucrats can deny an exemption to crowd limits for a child’s funeral while granting them for film crews and construction sites.

Health Minister Martin Foley is not up to the job.

On Tuesday he again indulged in the most infantile politicking by repeatedly blaming South Australia for Victoria’s latest lockdown.

I don’t recall the Victorian government taking responsibility for the large cluster of infections in Sydney in July and August that were traced back to Melbourne, and I don’t recall NSW blaming Victoria for the outbreak. Nor did NSW lock down the whole state.

By far the most shameful episode under Foley’s watch has been his department rejecting a grieving mother’s request for an exemption to the 10-person limit for her eight-year-old son’s funeral. The decision to refuse an exemption for Cooper Onyett’s funeral was needlessly cruel and unjustifiable.

The second-grader drowned on his first overnight school camp and the very least authorities could do for his heartbroken mother, Skye Meinen, was to allow family and friends to come together last Friday to celebrate Cooper’s life. Instead she was told no, despite the fact that Cooper’s funeral was in Warrnambool, more than 250km from Melbourne.

Health Minister Martin Foley is not up to the job. Picture: Getty Images

There were absolutely no public health reasons to refuse the request. Chief health officer Brett Sutton repeatedly referred to “equity issues” in explaining the callous decision.

It beggars belief that bureaucrats can justify denying an exemption for a child’s funeral in country Victoria while granting them for film crews in Port Melbourne and construction sites across the city.

Whatever your politics, there’s no doubt that Australia’s two most populous states have experienced wildly different pandemics.

One state quickly returned to something approaching normality while the other is locked down again with a battered economy and a demoralised populace who are told to “expect worse before it gets better”.

One state has carried the heaviest Covid-19 risk for the country taking in the bulk of overseas arrivals while the other has failed to do its part, twice suspending its flawed hotel quarantine system.

One state has 32 per cent of the country’s population but fewer than 6 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths, the other has 26 per cent of the country’s population but more than 90 per cent of Covid-19 deaths.

The decision to refuse an exemption for Cooper Onyett’s funeral was needlessly cruel and unjustifiable.

One state has relied on its “gold standard” contact tracing regime to contain the virus when outbreaks occur, including a large cluster traced back to Victoria, while the other relies on the nuclear option of strict lockdowns.

One state is NSW, led by a competent woman who has displayed a sense of proportionality throughout the Covid crisis and has kept people safe while ensuring their livelihoods and liberties are not needlessly destroyed, the other is Victoria.

Either Victoria is uniquely unlucky or perhaps electing a hard-left pack of ideologues of limited ability and even less sense is not conducive to good government.

One can understand why the rest of the country would baulk at extending further financial support to a state led by an inept mob who seem determined to extend an unnecessary lockdown.

But to listen to Labor, and its ever-reliable media sycophants, the federal government is to blame, and the least it can do is to provide additional compensation. On social media, #ScottysLockdown and #MorrisonLockdown have been trending. Funny how it’s always Victoria that is disproportionately impacted by federal government decisions.

Victoria has already received more assistance per capita than any other state, and it would be a mistake to reward the state government’s incompetence and panic-stricken lunacy with more taxpayer dollars.

Gladys Berejiklian deserves praise for keeping her citizens safe and refusing to submit to pressure amid outbreaks. Picture: Gaye Gerard

How much better off we would be if the state followed the example set by NSW in allowing a first-class contact tracing system to contain the virus instead of opting for the most destructive response; lockdown? That makes sense only if Victoria’s revamped contact tracing program is still not up to standard.

We could have emulated NSW in hotel quarantine, contact tracing and QR codes, but instead the arrogant Victorian government refused to follow tried and tested processes.

Gladys Berejiklian deserves praise not only for keeping her citizens safe but also for holding her nerve and refusing to submit to pressure from media and the dial-a-quote experts who demand harsher restrictions whenever NSW experiences outbreaks.

Who can forget the “Sydney is facing a super-spreading disaster” headlines from earlier in the year, or the hectoring from the likes of the ABC’s Dr Norman Swan who tweeted: “I’m afraid we’ve known since the first wave that the NSW incremental approach doesn’t work.”

Only it does work. It’s just a profound shame that it hasn’t been adopted in Victoria and elsewhere.

IN SHORT

When he wasn’t trying to divert blame, Martin Foley was contradicting Covid-19 testing commander Jeroen Weimar, who said all 54 cases had been linked. “There are no mystery cases, every case we have has been linked,” Weimar said. About 10 minutes later at the same press conference Foley said: “I stress we have an unlinked case in aged care.” About as clear as mud.

— Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

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