Rita Panahi Blame Labor, not Victorians
LAST week I saw first-hand the cruelty of the latest lockdown inflicted on vulnerable Victorians due to the gross incompetence of the state Labor government.
At a major Melbourne hospital, I watched as family members were turned away from visiting their ailing loved ones with strict new guidelines banning entry to visitors aged under 18 and limiting patients to just one visitor a day and just for an hour. That’s the policy at The Alfred, Caulfield and Sandringham hospitals.
Of course the policy is wellintentioned but that doesn’t alleviate the emotional pain of desperately-ill people who want to spend a few minutes with their children and grandchildren.
Even patients who are in their finals days have limits imposed on the number of visitors they can have.
It is heartbreaking to see Victorian families, businesses and students left behind as the rest of the country returns to a new normal with kids at school, businesses open, restaurants, cafes and pubs full, and even thousands of fans attending football games.
The pandemic was imposed on us, but the mishandling of the crisis by the Andrews government has seen Victorians bear far more economic and emotional pain than necessary. Melbourne is a ghost town and throughout the metropolitan area there are many businesses which barely survived the lockdown that are unlikely to survive this one.
From day one, Victoria had the harshest restrictions in the country. We were the only state that prevented people from visiting their mothers on Mother’s Day and were the slowest in lifting restrictions.
And yet those illogical measures that were supposed to save us from a second wave failed because infected overseas travellers were left unmonitored and untested in hotel quarantine and outbreaks were not adequately managed.
The indiscriminate nature of the current lockdown is as maddening as the incompetence and arrogance of a government that would rather blame citizens than acknowledge its own ineptitude.
The Glen Eira and Bayside council areas are home to more than 250,000 Victorians and have a total of five infections but are under the same restrictions as hot spots with 100-plus active cases. Even areas with zero infections, such as the Mornington Peninsula, are being forced into lockdown, needlessly putting more people under mental and financial strain.
Pies make a poor choice
THE Heritier Lumumba saga has taken another twist with the appointment of controversial activist and academic Larissa Behrendt to head the independent investigation into allegations of racism at Collingwood Football Club.
After years of claims and denials, Collingwood has promised a thorough review that will reveal what really transpired at the club between 2005 and 2014, a period in which Lumumba, formerly Harry O’Brien, claims he was the victim of a culture of racism and bullying as chronicled in the documentary, Fair Game.
Collingwood has entrusted the probe to Prof Behrendt, whom they described as “a distinguished barrister, researcher, writer and filmmaker”. Some of the reporting on her appointment was fanciful stuff, describing the Sydney University academic and ABC host as “coming with an unimpeachable reputation in indigenous affairs”.
The truth is Behrendt is a highly divisive activist who made headlines in 2011 for describing respected indigenous anti-violence campaigner Bess Price as more offensive than bestiality. Behrendt tweeted: “I watched a show where a guy had sex with a horse and I’m sure it was less offensive than Bess Price.”
Price is a heroine in the eyes of many. She has overcome terrible disadvantage and violence to be a fearless warrior for at-risk indigenous women and children.
She has little time for inner-city activists who obsess about Australia Day and the flag instead of the plight of abused, neglected children, or the fact indigenous women are about 35 times more likely to be hospitalised due to domestic violence than other Australian women.
But it is the likes of Behrendt, not Price, who win media accolades and are appointed to run inquiries.
IT IS HEARTBREAKING TO SEE VICTORIAN FAMILIES, BUSINESSES AND STUDENTS LEFT BEHIND AS THE REST OF THE COUNTRY RETURNS TO A NEW NORMAL