How Geelong will keep Melbourne out during the lockdown

AUTOMATIC number plate scanning, the Australian Defence Force and checkpoints on major arterials will be used to fortify regional borders during the six-week lockdown of Melbourne.

An explosion in Melbourne’s COVID-19 cases will see police set up checkpoints with booze buses and use scanning technology to match residential addresses to licence holders. But V/Line will not scale back services to Melbourne and staff will not check identification of passengers to stop people sneaking into regional Victoria.

Instead police will target Southern Cross train station to find lockdown rule breakers.

More than 250 ADF members will bolster the lockdown by monitoring regional Victoria’s boundaries.

Spot checks will also be performed at random spots along the Greater Geelong border with Melbourne, a source said.

The lockdown comes as Premier Daniel Andrews is considering “options to accelerate” opening regional Victoria.”

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said 700 extra police would be deployed statewide to enforce the lockdown with input from public order response, the mounted branch and highway patrol.

“It won’t be an absolute ring of steel, but there will be a significant police presence and a whole amount of those main arterial roads you’d expect to see … going down to Geelong, heading to Gippsland,” Mr Patton said.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said: “For those who want to blatantly, obviously and deliberately breach these directives … whether it’s about you trying to, for no good reason, go to regional Victoria (from Melbourne) police will be there.”

Premier Daniel Andrews said the government was considering options to restore the stalled economy.

“We have vast areas within regional Victoria where there is no community transmission, other parts of regional Victoria where there are small numbers of cases and we have to safeguard the status of regional Victoria.

“We are doing the hard work to look at options to accelerate opening-up in regional Victoria for regional Victorians.

“To achieve that outcome, then we do have to have a hard border between 31 metropolitan LGAs, and Mitchell Shire, and regional Victoria.”

For the next six weeks, beginning today, metropolitan Melbourne residents will be allowed to leave their houses for food and supplies, care and care giving, exercise, and work or study.