Postcode bans push the limit
EXPECTING PEOPLE TO RESPECT AND COMPLY WITH A LOCKDOWN BASED ON POSTIE ROUTES RATHER THAN OBVIOUS COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST IS ASKING A LOT
IT is one thing to lock down an entire state or even an entire city; it is quite another to lock down parts of it on the basis of a postcode.
All year government and political types have been debating something called “social licence”, which is a fancy way of talking about how far we can be pushed before we start pushing back.
It seems a lifetime ago now but back in late February and early March, governments around the world hesitated about imposing full lockdowns, not merely because of the economic damage but because they were worried the public wouldn’t accept them.
It turned out that in a pandemic the social licence granted to the state by the public was very broad indeed.
It helped that, barring some differences between the states, the same demands were being made of everyone.
It helped too that everyone basically accepted that, with the big exception of the China Communist Party, no human agency was to blame.
Neither of these conditions applies to the announcement made on Tuesday by Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews. Not only is the State
Government asking very different things of people based on their postcodes, by announcing an inquiry into what went on at the quarantine hotels it is tacitly admitting this outbreak has happened because something has gone wrong and it is someone’s fault.
Few listening to the Premier reeling off the losers in his postcode lockdown lottery on Tuesday will not have felt a twinge of fear that he was going to get to them.
This decision to use postcodes has thrown up strange anomalies. For example, 3032, stretches in a long thin corridor from Highpoint, across the Maribyrnong, through Ascot Vale down to ritzy Travancore, will all be locked down.
Yet the densely packed and adjacent 3039 (Moonee Ponds) and 3031 (Flemington and Kensington) are to be spared before the lockdown kicks in again where 3032 touches — just — at its northeast corner 3055 (Brunswick South, Brunswick West, Moonee Vale and Moreland West).
Expecting people to respect and comply with a lockdown based on postie routes rather than obvious communities of interest is asking a lot.