A TRAFFIC-light system that would protect rural and regional Victoria from harsh stage 4 lockdowns in the event of a COVID-19 cluster in Melbourne is a key focus of negotiations with the Victorian Government to extend the State of Emergency regulations.
Member for Mildura Ali Cupper and her Reason Coalition colleague Fiona Patten had meetings with Health Minister Martin Foley last week to discuss amendments to the State of Emergency Extension Bill.
“Having a more proportionate and nuanced approach to regional Victoria has been my key pitch to the government,” Ms Cupper said.
“We don’t want to have a situation like we did recently where the entire state is put into stage 4 lockdown because of an outbreak in Melbourne.
“A traffic-light system would give us an approach that is more proportionate to the risk.
“Regional and rural communities need to have the confidence that they are not going be locked down just because of a cluster in Melbourne.”
The Victorian Government wants to extend the current SOE powers for nine months, however Ms Cupper said the Reason Coalition believed a three-month extension was more palatable to the community. Reason is also continuing to for pandemic-specific legislation.
“I could not vote in support of the current Bill in the Legislative Assembly in our last sitting and Ms Patten has indicated she can not support the Bill in its current state,” Ms Cupper said.
“We are now largely moving to the recovery phase, so the need for such a broad and powerful mechanism like a state of emergency is not as relevant as specific legislation to manage public safety.”
Ms Cupper said it was important people understood an extension of state of emergency provisions had bipartisan support.
“We need rules in place so the government has the capacity to keep people safe when there are outbreaks,” she said.
“There have been a lot of political games about the state of emergency extension, however all sides of politics agree there needs to be rules in place.”
The Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (State of Emergency Extension) Bill 2021 will be voted on in the Legislative Council this week.
