Cupper: THE Victorian Government is expected to announce its “road map” out of the current COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday.
There is little doubt after weeks of restrictions, this road map will be welcome news for all of us.
Premier Daniel Andrews has forecast separate easing of restrictions for regional areas and metropolitan Melbourne.
Given we have been extremely vigilant in keeping the coronavirus out of our region over the past few months, the prospect of being able to return to some sort of COVID-19 normal is deserved.
We have arguably been harder hit by the stage 3 restrictions than any other regional area due to the added burden of border closures.
The Mildura electorate is bound by both the New South Wales and South Australian borders and restricting our access to those states has turned our day-to-day lives upside down.
Thankfully, over the past week both NSW and SA governments have eased some of the toughest restrictions and returned workable border bubbles. But even these bubbles are far from perfect and more needs to be done to allow people in our border communities to safely get on with their lives.
Getting children back to school, allowing community sport in some form, getting our hospitality businesses back operating on a bigger scale all need to be priorities for the Victorian road map in the coming weeks and months.
One thing we can all do right now to help our businesses and economy is to pledge to shop local, and with Father’s Day tomorrow there is no better time to buy that perfect present for Dad from a local outlet.
Through my #onlylocal campaign, I have been urging people to help keep our economy ticking over by buying local. The premise is to put a moratorium on making online shopping for at least six months after the lockdown, unless it is from a local business.
Father’s Day will be another significant day on our calendar we will have to celebrate in a different way due to the stage 3 COVID-19 restrictions.
But we can all do our bit for those small businesses who are doing it so tough at the moment by supporting a local business to help them survive.
Happy Father’s Day to all those dads and grandads – enjoy your day.
