Ali Cupper, Member for Mildura
THIS weekend, families are hurt and disappointed they cannot celebrate Mother’s Day in the way they had planned.
People are weary of making sacrifices for the COVID-19 fight and this is understandable.
So many sacrifices have already been made, including Easter and Anzac Day.
Every day, coffee dates, cafe lunches, knock-off drinks at the pub, family gatherings – the sorts of micro-luxuries that are often the highlights of our day – are being sacrificed.
Six months ago, these things might not have felt so special or exciting, but you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
Since the start of the Stage 3 restrictions, it has become very clear how important the simple act of socialising face-to-face is to our overall health and wellbeing. It is fundamental to a happy life. Basic financial security is just as fundamental, and for many this has been sacrificed too.
Business owners have sacrificed income. Workers have sacrificed wages. Governments have sacrificed surpluses.
Across the world, billions of people have sacrificed so much and in a very short time.
But we did so for a very clear and compelling reason: the alternative was worse.
We saw the images of refrigerator trucks in northern Italy. We saw the rising death toll. We saw the lacerated faces of exhausted doctors whose face masks had been stuck on their faces for 20 hours or more.
We knew the choice was simple: sacrifice income and social life or sacrifice lives.
The US death toll sits at more than 70,000. Without social distancing, the death toll would have been more than a million.
In Australia and the Mallee, our numbers have been low and stable, not by accident or stroke of luck, but because of decisive, bipartisan leadership and, most importantly, a united willingness by most of us to stay at home.
We want to take a break for Mother’s Day but we can’t, because the virus won’t be taking a break.
To protect our health system and save lives, we must make further sacrifices on Mother’s Day. Give Mum a call. Send her flowers. Order a breakfast box from a local cafe. Give her a Mother’s Day “raincheck” for later in the year.
The life you save could be your Mum’s.
