MEMBER for Mildura Ali Cupper has been accused of selling out her electorate by supporting a nine-month state of emergency extension.
Ms Cupper this week accused the Victorian Labor Government of back-flipping on a commitment to implement proportionate rules for regional Victoria under any further COVID-19 lockdowns in return for her support following the “good faith” negotiations.
The extension legislation was rushed through State Parliament late on Tuesday night with the backing of Ms Cupper’s Reason Party colleague Fiona Patten with minor amendments including a reduction in fines for young people, a review of fines for disadvantaged communities and an appeal process for detention orders.
But Health Minister Martin Foley denied that regional concessions had been agreed to, saying “the proposal wasn’t worked up sufficiently enough”.
State Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien and Nationals leader Peter Walsh both went on the attack and accused the Mildura MP of selling out her electorate and the rest of regional Victoria.
Ms Cupper claimed the legislative amendments agreed by the government was “an important victory for regional and rural Victoria” before the vote.
“I was told (Tuesday) that there would be concessions for the regions in the government’s future framework for managing the pandemic and today the government denied it,” Ms Cupper told State Parliament on Wednesday.
“I said I wanted an assurance that to the greatest extent possible the government would apply proportionality based on risk.”
Ms Cupper said claims she was trying to get regions permanently excluded from COVID-19 restrictions were “just not true”.
“I never asked for that,” she said.
“That’s all on the public record … you can do what you want to politically with that but you don’t have to heap lies on top of it.
“You should have … some shred of honour, some standards, some ethics, some basic human decency.”
Mr O’Brien said the State Opposition was “outraged” that Ms Cupper and the Reason Party had supported “bad legislation”.
“Not only has the Reason Party sold Victoria out, and not only has the member for Mildura sold Mildura out, but they have sold them out without even getting a return,” Mr O’Brien told State Parliament.
“It is appalling … it is an absolute joke.
“We know the member for Mildura sold out her constituents, voting to keep them under a nine-month extension of the state of emergency with nothing in return.
“The government made it quite clear there is no deal, no traffic-light system.
“The government is not playing ball, but Reason voted for it anyway.”
Mr Walsh said regional Victorians would not be spared the emotional, social and financial pain of future lockdowns, even if cases were confined to Melbourne.
“This bizarre ‘he-said-she-said’ only confirms one thing – regional Victorians will be no better off with an extra nine months of Daniel Andrews having the state of emergency powers,” Mr Walsh said.
“Ali Cupper and the Reason Party have sold out regional Victorians and are now trying to pull the wool over our eyes, but the government has confirmed this dodgy backroom deal will deliver no certainty for country businesses and families,” he said.
Mr Walsh said the five-day lockdown last month had destroyed steps country communities had taken towards recovery, despite the cases being confined to Melbourne.
Ms Patten told State Parliament on Tuesday that legislation developed over the next few months would be nuanced and have “the right risk measures and calculations in it”.
“I was very pleased that the government has also confirmed that within the next few days to a couple of weeks we will see some very specific regulations and information about how we deal with regional areas,” she said.
