‘Labor in Victoria is losing a generation of voters like me’

Since my early 20s, I’ve been an avid Labor supporter, following Labor like you would barrack for a footy team. As a Young Labor member, I loved hearing stories of the great achievements of the Whitlam and Hawke/Keating governments. As a paid up member, I handed out how-to-vote cards at elections. At the 2019 federal election, I made a significant donation and flew to Sydney to help a mate in his first campaign, in a safe Liberal electorate. However, for myself and many of my peers in our 30s, Labor is in danger of losing us for life.

My rationale for voting Labor has always been that the excesses of our capitalistic system leave many people helpless and we need a degree of redistribution to ensure all young people have equality of opportunity, including a decent education and healthcare. Not everyone in life can be a winner, but a portion of their winnings are more than enough to provide a safety net for the less fortunate. Fundamental to both sides of politics has always been the belief that traditional capitalism is the foundation of prosperity. Where they disagree is on what to do with the spoils.

What we have seen, though, from the Victorian Government has been nothing short of an attack on business, productivity and ordinary citizens’ sense of self-worth. Writing from the CBD of Melbourne, in my one hour of freedom a day, I’ve seen more and more “For Lease” signs. During the past two weeks I’ve seen a noticeable increase in stripped shops, nothing more than a dusty slab of concrete where a profitable small business once stood. Victorian businesses are rapidly losing hope and, for many, it is already too late.

How is it that the party I was once a member of is seeking to destroy the lynchpin of prosperity and individual responsibility? Redistribution only works if the underlying economic machine is allowed to function without being overburdened by government. Unless there is a wholesale repudiation of the handling of the COVID crisis, I’ll have to approach voting, one of my last civil liberties still intact, with a new caveat — “Labor last”.

Daniel Ednie-Lockett, Melbourne, Vic

The approach of the Victorian Government (and, more specifically, Daniel Andrews) to managing the coronavirus is based less on medical evidence and epidemiology and more on fear, control and ideology. Prominent epidemiologists and infectious disease experts have denounced his roadmap out of restrictions and even the non-medical “experts” who were asked to do the modelling for the plan are now backing away.

Containment and suppression could be achieved by a targeted approach, concentrating on known “hotspots”, listening to frontline healthcare workers and supporting them with appropriate clinical advice and levels of PPE. As a clinician who has been working at the frontline since the beginning of the pandemic, involved with testing and treating patients and their families, I have seen first hand the effects of the virus and the even more devastating effects of the mindless and irrational policies that have been promulgated and enforced by bureaucrats.

I suggest the Premier’s inner circle, the so-called COVID-8, venture out of the confines of their taxpayer-funded offices and into the real world to see the mental anguish, economic pain and destruction of social cohesion the Victorian government’s sledgehammer approach is causing.

Dr Jo-Anne Grey, Port Melbourne, Vic

Dan Andrews says he is relying on “expert computer modelling” to justify an extension of the stage four lockdown. He says if we ease too soon, we risk another wave of cases. But the compulsory use of face masks was implemented on July 23. Combined with existing COVID controls, after two weeks, on August 6, daily new cases started to reduce significantly. This happened well before any added reduction as a result of stage four.

Bill Ivinson, Beaumaris, Vic