Queries on curfew shake trust in Covid-19 roadmap

In addition to the state of emergency and state of disaster imposed on them, Victorians now find themselves in a state of confusion. The public health debacle that is ruining lives and destroying jobs and businesses has sunk into deep disarray, with nobody in authority able to say how or why Melbourne’s tedious 8pm-5am curfew came about. On Tuesday, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it was not imposed as a result of his health advice. On Wednesday, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said that the decision had not come from police. He was not consulted and only found out about it a few hours before it was announced on August 2. Premier Daniel Andrews further muddied the water, stating decisions were made “by a group of people”. But he did not pinpoint anyone or say when the decision was made. When journalists pressed the point, he tried to clarify the issue, in a way. “These are decisions ultimately made by me, so the answer to the question (of why there is a curfew) is, I’ve made that decision. It’s a challenging one to make, but it’s effective,” Mr Andrews said. Not for businesses that normally would be open after 8pm. Nor for those whose best opportunity to step outside or to top up the grocery cupboard is at night. The more fundamental issue — the civil right of citizens to move around their own city or even their own street — appears to have been put on the government backburner.

Aside from adding to the anxiety, depression and frustration of Melburnians, the curfew is compounding Victoria’s economic crisis and its impact on the rest of the nation. Our second-largest state is too big to fail; yet the extent of its failure is emerging in new analyses of the economic impact of six weeks of one of the most severe lockdowns in the world, which has been extended for a fortnight. Modelling commissioned by Melbourne City Council from PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests coronavirus will deliver a $23bn hit to Melbourne’s CBD and inner suburbs this year, wiping out 22,000 jobs and causing the city’s economy to contract by almost a quarter. In the next five years the capital could lose up to $110bn and 79,000 jobs compared with pre-pandemic projections.

Beyond Melbourne, analysis by KPMG shows the Victorian economy will shrink by up to 20 per cent on pre-pandemic levels because of the extended restrictions and business shutdowns. The hit to the state economy could be as much as $6bn. In a worst-case scenario, KPMG warns, an extra 350,000 workers could join the jobless queue in the three months to September. That would be on top of roughly 250,000 jobs already lost as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

As Melbourne wallows in despair, it is understandable that Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp is calling for billions of dollars in investment from commonwealth and state governments to support businesses and deliver infrastructure stimulus. Taxpayers, however, are not a bottomless money pit. And the Andrews government’s approach to public policy is not engendering confidence among investors. As Australian Retailers Association chief executive Paul Zahra says, restrictions have hit the city’s CBD like a sledgehammer. While Melbourne’s CBD had a million visitors a day last year, foot traffic has fallen by almost 90 per cent. Mr Andrews is preparing to unveil a major economic rescue package, which accords with the advice of the Reserve Bank that the states need to do more of the economic lifting. But he also needs to put public health policy in better order.

Victorian government MPs are understandably concerned about the virtual disappearance of Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, with one colleague claiming she had “gone into hiding”. Ms Mikakos was regularly by Mr Andrews’s side earlier in the pandemic, but this has diminished in the wake of the hotel quarantine fiasco and contact tracing problems. These are at the heart of the state’s second wave of COVID-19 and its heavy-handed and costly response. If ever the state needed strong leadership in the health portfolio it is now. On Thursday the inquiry into the hotel quarantine fiasco heard Brendan Murphy, chief medical officer at the time, offered Australian Defence Force personnel to use in the program. Why was that offer not accepted? Even former federal opposition leader Bill Shorten wants Victoria’s lockdown restrictions to “come off a bit quicker”. And federal Victorian Labor MP Daniel Mulino, a former Andrews government MP from the party’s Right, is correct in urging the Premier to release the full modelling underpinning his roadmap to recovery. More detailed information, Mr Mulino said, would improve community confidence in the plan. It could hardly erode it any further. After confusion over who called for the Melbourne curfew and why, and the daily sacrifices being forced on them, Victorians deserve to be taken into the government’s confidence.