Coronavirus Melbourne: Cyclist grilled after being accused of not exercising

Victoria has been labelled a police state after footage emerged of a man being grilled by cops while exercising, sparking fresh lockdown outrage.

Footage has emerged of a cyclist being grilled by Victorian Police officers after being accused of “not exercising”, with medical and former government officials calling out Premier Daniel Andrews’ “police state”.

The video, uploaded to the YouTube account Nunya Bizness, shows a cyclist filming himself riding around an almost empty car park near the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne.

The man is stopped by a woman wearing a top that simply says “staff”, who demands to know why he isn’t wearing a face mask.

“Oi, come here. Is there a reason you’re not wearing a mouthpiece mate?” she asks.

The cyclist explains he is exercising, to which the woman tells him “No you’re not”.

“You’re not exercising. Do you have any ID on you?” she asks.

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The woman was filmed ordering the man to stop before accusing him of not exercising. Picture: Nunya Bizness/ YouTube

The man then reiterates that he is riding his bike for exercise.

Under the current COVID-19 rules in Victoria, a mask doesn’t need to be worn when a person is “doing any exercise or physical activity where you are out of breath or puffing”.

However, the woman remained adamant the man wasn’t exercising.

“No you’re not mate. You’re riding a bike, you’re standing here and you’re stopping and filming it all. You’re stopping the whole time along here,” she says in the video.

“That’s not exercising. Exercising is continuously going. Do you have any ID on you?”

At this point three police officers intervene and continue questioning the man, with the sound on the video cutting out as he provides his details.

The cyclist then explains he always films while riding and uploads the videos to TikTok.

Another officer then asks the man if he is more than 5km from his home.

“I wouldn’t do that. That’s against the law isn’t it?” he replies, before asking if he is free to continue his exercise.

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The officers questioned him while trying to figure out if he was 5km from home. Picture: Nunya Bizness/YouTube

Three police officers surrounded the man, with one demanding to know why he was filming. Picture: Nunya Bizness/ YouTube

After confirming his identity, one of the officers says he is free to go but tells him he can’t keep exercising in the car park.

When the cyclist questions why the officer says: “You’ve got to be closer to home.”

The cyclist pushes back, asking the officer if he is more than 5km from his home.

“I’m getting my google maps out,” the officer says.

The man insists he is well within the 5km radius.

“If it’s not within 5km you may arrest me but I can tell you it is. Anyway you can check that on your own, are we all done here?” he says.

The man is eventually told he is free to leave and continues his exercise around the car park.

The video has been viewed more than 52,000 times, with viewers blasting the behaviour of police as “disgusting”.

“Simply unbelievable, this just off the charts police behaviour. Victoria is completely wrecked and ruined,” one person commented.

“This is disgusting. I’m ashamed to call myself Australian as I watch this, another said.

One person added: “This is bad. Hopefully people will remember all of this at the next election.”

The Victorian government has been facing harsh criticism over its tough lockdown tactics, with a former economist at the Treasury Department blasting Victoria as a “police state”.

Sanjeev Sabhlok resigned last month in protest of Daniel Andrews and his government’s response to the pandemic.

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Sanjeev Sabhlok has been an outspoken critic of Victoria's harsh COVID-19 measures. Picture: A Current Affair/Channel 9

Mr Sabhlok said he has been against Melbourne’s lockdown measures since they were introduced, claiming his concerns were “repeatedly brushed aside” when he raised them within his department in the Treasury.

He resigned after he was asked to take down thousands of tweets that he had written criticising the government.

“I started calling this a police state and I think that is when the Treasury might have said ‘Hey this guy is now starting to say something quite bold, let’s ask him to pull down all his posts’,” Mr Sabhlok told A Current Affair.

“I resigned on the spot. I said ‘I want to go, I need to go and speak about this issue publicly. I need to let the people know that you did the wrong thing’.”

The problem for politicians now is how to reverse course without losing their job. They've messed up on an unimaginable scale.

I personally would like them locked up in jail. No mercy. There was so much good info and advice available but they picked the worst. https://t.co/119Tg5Z0xi

— Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope @Church of Reason & Liberty (@sabhlok) September 14, 2020

Mr Sabhlok said the government’s decisions around COVID-19 policy needed to be about protecting high risk categories, such as those in aged care.

“In this case the government should have put all possible barricades and barriers, hundreds and millions of dollars poured into the aged care system so that not a single extra person would have died,” he said.

“They started forcing the people without any risk to wear masks, and then to bash them up, and then to start wasting everybody’s time discussing that.”

The former Treasury worker doesn’t deny that COVID-19 is dangerous, adding that he has been wearing an N95 mask, face shield and gloves in situations where he can’t socially distance since February.

“If Daniel Andrews can prove to me that confining me in solitary confinement inside some small place will save the human species – but prove to me that’s the only thing left for him to do, to confine all of us in solitary confinement, I will do that,” Mr Sabhlok said.

Surgeon Geoff Wells is one of the more than 500 medical experts who are calling on Mr Andrews to end the lockdown.

“We don’t think there is any medical basis for the 5km lockdown. We don’t think there is any scientific basis for wearing masks outside,” Dr Wells told the program.

“It is possible to decrease the harm of the virus without significant side effects. We need social distancing, hand washing, masks inside. We need very, very good contact tracing.”