Victoria’s coronavirus red-light rule traps thousands

More than 50,000 people were ­issued with permits to travel to Victoria in the 16 hours after the online portal set up to administer the new ‘traffic light’ system went live.

ANU infectious diseases physician Peter Collignon.

More than 50,000 people were ­issued with permits to travel to Victoria in the 16 hours after the online portal set up to administer the Andrews government’s new “traffic light” system for interstate travel went live, but thousands remain stranded interstate as a result of “red zone” designations for Sydney and Brisbane.

The new rules came into effect at 5.59pm on Monday, requiring anyone travelling to Victoria from any state or territory to apply for a permit or face a fine of almost $5000, but the online portal was not running until 9pm.

While a “border bubble” has been created for NSW border communities, those on the South Australian border had been granted no such concession late on Tuesday, with one SA border resident describing the situation as “ludicrous”.

The glitches emerged as ANU infectious diseases physician Peter Collignon said while the concept of the red-amber-green system might be valid, the current settings were unreasonable.

Professor Collignon noted that regional NSW, rated amber, has a population of more than three million “but there has been no transmission in that ­region since all this started”.

“Even if they’ve got a few cases in regional areas, that’s less than one in a million people who’ve got it at this time. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s arguable whether all of Sydney should be a red zone.

“There’s a lot of areas like the central coast that haven’t had any transmission. When you’ve got a population of five million, to treat everybody the same is maybe not legitimate.”

The failure to have the portal functioning in time for the rule change follows similar instances of websites crashing when Vic­torians had to apply for permits to work during the state’s second lockdown, when businesses needed to apply for pandemic assistance grants, and when the Andrews government offered $200 regional travel vouchers.

While Premier Daniel Andrews’s office initially said on Monday night the delay had been caused by the requirement for Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton to sign legal directions, Professor Sutton took to Twitter to say the directions had been signed “on time”, with Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville on Tuesday blaming “technical issues” and apologising to Victorians.

“Last night was a terrible one. Apologies to everyone who was frustrated, held up,” she said.

“There were no fines issued as a result of that last night because we were aware that people were trying to do the right thing and were unable to do that.”

As of 1pm on Tuesday, 51,438 permits had been issued, including about 12,000 in the hour after the portal went live.

The portal issues permits automatically to people travelling from green zones or from regional NSW amber zones from where people must quarantine on entry into Victoria until they test negative for coronavirus.

With thousands of Victorians stranded interstate from having been in the Brisbane, Sydney, Blue Mountains and Wollongong “red zones” in the past 14 days, Ms Neville said the border closures were being reassessed daily.

Graham Carter, who lives 3.5km from the South Australian border near the Victorian town of Serviceton, said the failure of the Andrews government to work with the Marshall government on a similar border bubble arrangement to that in place with NSW was “ludicrous”, given Victorian residents of the region had to travel over the border to Bordertown “multiple times a day” to shop and visit elderly relatives.