MILDURA was “roped” into a five-day statewide lockdown because “potentially hundreds” of people could have taken the highly contagious UK strain of the COVID-19 virus into regional Victoria, according to Labor MP Danielle Green.
Responding to several questions in State Parliament this week about the need to include Mildura in stage 4 restrictions for the first time since the pandemic emerged, Ms Green said limiting movement throughout the state during the “circuit-breaker” action was a priority.
“I flew to Mildura a couple of weeks ago,” Ms Green said.
“I heard a member earlier in this debate … saying, ‘Why was Mildura roped into this?’.
“I will tell you why … because there were potentially hundreds of people that had flown from Melbourne Airport on that day, on Friday, that could have taken that highly infectious strain to regional Victoria.
“So it was important to protect the whole state and to limit the movement of everyone, because we are dealing with a highly infectious strain that has not been seen in this state before.”
Ms Green said she, too, had seen people fleeing Melbourne.
“But just imagine if we had said it was a lockdown and we were putting in the ring of steel again and we had given people 12 hours’ notice,” she said.
“We would have had many more people jumping in their cars and going to regional Victoria.
“There is no substitute — when the scientific advice tells you that you must follow it, you must stick with it.”
Deputy leader of the Liberal Party and Member for Eildon Cindy McLeish said people had just started returning to regional Victoria when Premier Daniel Andrews announced the latest lockdown measures.
“When they had a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of sunshine, that things might have started looking OK, we had people starting to come back to regional Victoria — then regional Victoria was closed down,” Ms McLeish said.
People in those towns — in Mildura, in Shepparton, in Wodonga — where there have been hardly any cases at all of COVID over the entire period, have been subjected to these same harsh lockdowns.
“And it is these lockdowns that are happening when we are not given the advice to understand exactly why they have been made.”
