A YEAR ago, the coronavirus pandemic prevented veterans and the community coming together on Anzac Day to commemorate.
Instead, they stood in solitude at the end of their driveways, with candles lit, as part of the state’s enforced self-isolation.
But tomorrow, our community will again have the opportunity to come out and pay respects to those who served our country.
This week, the Mildura RSL finally received approval for up to 5000 people to attend its march.
It’s a long way shy of the 75,000 people who are permitted to attend the footy at the MCG on Anzac Day, but in the past year we have become accustomed to double standards from the Victorian Government, and this is just another example.
Unfortunately, the government’s handling of Anzac Day restrictions has been a confusing, bureaucratic mess that has added stress to elderly veterans and their families.
While other states have had clear messaging and a lot less red tape in the lead-up to Anzac Day, the Victorian Government has continually shifted the goalposts on what is and isn’t allowed, on who is permitted to march, on how many can attend. It needn’t have been this hard.
Remember, Victoria has not had a community transmission of COVID-19 for about two months, yet decisions continue to made at the 11th hour on so many community events that make it a nightmare for organisers.
In Mildura, the local RSL branch has made the difficult decision to exclude schools and family members of veterans from the march, creating outrage from those families, all to ensure they come in under the caps and regulations.
They have also reduced the number of people laying wreaths and limited performances from choirs and bands, given the doubt that has surrounded numbers over the past month.
Hopefully the community is appreciative of the hoops that local RSL branches have been forced to jump through to get Anzac Day services off the ground, rather than critical of what isn’t being allowed. It can’t have been an easy process.
“While the rules have relaxed, the amount of effort and paperwork (we have had to do) to make it happen is huge,” Mildura RSL manager of veterans’ services Paul Mensch told Sunraysia Daily this week.
Perhaps we should instead focus on the overriding positive that marches and dawn services are going ahead across the region.
As a community and a country, it is a far cry from where we were at this time last year, and that’s a position we should feel good about.
In terms of the new crowd limit for Mildura, 5000 is a big number, so it would be great to see as many people as possible turn out to support the veterans tomorrow.
We know that our older community members are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of coronavirus, so the past year would have been particularly tough on our veterans.
There may still be some who choose to avoid crowds tomorrow and mark the occasion from home.
But to all of them, we say thank you for their wonderful service.
Lest we forget.
