THE problem with rules that are nonsense is they blur the ones that are important.
So when Premier Daniel Andrews releases his road map out of lockdowns – expected on Sunday – he needs to remove all the BS stuff that is making a mockery of his government’s COVID restrictions.
Take golf.
Last weekend, the government again permitted golfers in regional Victoria to return to the course and play in groups of four; only it wasn’t allowed to be a “competition”.
Yep, walking around a golf course and playing with three other people for “exercise” purposes was deemed safe, but the “competition” aspect of scoring was not?
It’s not a big issue in the overall scheme of all-things COVID, but the rule is still utter nonsense. And the absurdity of it doesn’t just makes Victoria a laughing stock to the world, it dangerously makes the government a laughing stock to its own people.
Society needs to respect the decisions of its leaders – in a pandemic, particularly – but when the messaging is mixed, contradictory and catastrophised, respect for the rules gets lost.
The heads of Victorians have been spinning for a long time now, and the wheel needs to stop, or at least slow down.
One week the government is banning playgrounds, the next it is requiring worker permits to drop your kids at childcare, the next we are told we can exercise for two hours, not one, or travel 10km not 5km. When our lockdowns are “lifted” we are told we still can’t have visitors in our homes or have more than 10 people seated at a venue that caters for 1000, after previously having square metre density rules. This is the eighth set of different rules for hospitality venues in Victoria, incidentally. And don’t even mention the nightly curfews.
These ever-changing restrictions don’t exist anywhere else, yet confused Victorians are lectured for not following them.
Like robots, we Victorians watch our televisions each day anxiously waiting for what’s next, not knowing whether we will receive breadcrumbs to our freedom or have them suddenly taken away by a change in our wastewater, as happened to Ballarat this week.
It’s a horrible state of perpetual limbo.
The Premier needs to change his messaging from fear and threats to hope and direction.
If he were a sporting coach, he needs to win back many of his players.
Victoria’s position in the fight against COVID remains delicate with its case numbers still too high and its vaccination numbers not yet high enough.
But the doom and gloom approach has worn us down.
Mr Andrews’ government needs to be bolder in its approach to letting us live with COVID as vaccination rates increase. It needs to return sensible density limits and better hold its nerve when cases emerge.
It should look to the imminent return of all non-contact sport, not in groups of five or 10 at a time, but full competitions.
Take the risk averse approach and get kids – and adults – off their screens and out on cricket fields. Or athletics and BMX tracks, the list goes on.
The government has never shown evidence as to how any of these nonsense rules have made us safer. Perhaps they were used as a psychological tactic to distract us from the bigger impositions on our lives. My guess is we will never find out.
But it’s time to strip them all away.
C’mon Mr Andrews, what’s the real danger in a local golfer trying to sink a birdie to win a cooked chook? Surely that’s one small way we can learn to live with COVID.
