The Nationals leader and Member for Murray Plains, Peter Walsh, said the Liberal Nationals have a plan to rescue Victorians from our crippling rolling lockdowns.
Mr Walsh said the people must join with the Liberal Nationals for the economy to be rescued and to restore some kind of certainty and confidence in the future.
He said the failure of repeated lockdowns to stop COVID-19 has proved it could be as effectively managed with proportional responses, such as a series of restrictions based on local government areas or postcodes – not the whole state.
“Why does all of southwest Victoria, for example, have to shut down because there are two cases in Mildura – which came out of Melbourne?” Mr Walsh said.
“Why do so many people have to lose their businesses, their livelihoods and their mental wellbeing when they don’t all need to be restricted?” he said.
“This is a campaign being run on fear and the control of information – the Andrews Labor Government is still refusing to make public who and how it is getting ‘the best medical advice’.
“The government must release the health advice so we can all see and understand how we got here – and also see a pathway out of these damaging lockdowns.
“Why don’t we use the rapid test technology that is available, that was good enough for the G7 and for much of the rest of the western world?
“It’s a $10 test and could be used for all major crowd events, from the Grand Prix to the footy and concerts.”
Mr Walsh said Victorians should also have access to their QR code information so they can check themselves where and when they have visited places.
He said to expect people to recall every place they have dropped into for the past fortnight is just not acceptable.
“The government has all that data, but it’s our data, yours and mine, so we should be able to access it; they can in other states,” Mr Walsh added.
“And speaking of data, I still don’t think the figures being thrown about give us the full story – I think it would really help people’s confidence to not just know the number of infections, but to know how many people are actually sick at the same time; and in hospital,” he said.
“And we need to ramp up targeted vaccinations – teachers, for example, so our kids can get back into the classroom.”
Mr Walsh said the management of business support has “been a disgrace” and to base it on GST or revenue is destroying hundreds, possibly thousands, of small sole-trader or small family businesses because they get nothing from this government,” Mr Walsh said.
“With business support Andrews Labor is all headline and no deadline. They offer an empty promise at the lectern, but the support never reaches the bank accounts of desperate Victorian business owners,” he said.
“I have had yet another constituent on the phone this morning saying he cannot access the latest Victorian government support package because there are so many out-clauses he has simply given up.
“This is deception on a grand scale – Daniel Andrews waving millions of dollars about, grabbing the headlines and then failing to deliver a single dollar to so many people.
“With the Liberal Nationals, if you are a business, we won’t be ducking for cover behind ‘medical advice’ and a lockdown; if you are impacted; you qualify for financial aid. It’s that simple.”