Truth is locked down
Jim’s boss battles on
JIM’S Mowing founder Jim Penman is taking a fight for access to the advice behind Melbourne’s world record pandemic lockdown to the Supreme Court.
Mr Penman is backing a claim for lockdown compensation, brought by one of his franchisees, and has slammed government secrecy in the fight.
Access to documents – including drafts, advice, emails, texts and file notes – that he believes were central to lockdown decisions was this week refused by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
But Mr Penman, who believes there was never any reason to ban independent sole operators, such as gardeners, from working, said he would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
“It’s absolutely outrageous. It’s an extraordinary decision,” he said.
“What they’re basically saying is, ‘We’ve thrown hundreds of thousands of Victorians out of work, we had very good reason for it, but we don’t have to tell you what it was.’
“It’s outrageous. It means they can do anything they like and they don’t need a good reason.”
Mr Penman said he wanted to know why independent sole operators like lawn mowing contractors, working alone, were banned from working.
He believes there was never a justification for the move.
“The misery that it caused was appalling. It really was,” he said.
“These decisions have terrible consequences, when there’s no valid reason for them in health terms.
“I’m a big supporter of the government when it comes to reasonable things like vaccinations, we’ve run a campaign to support vaccination.
“We’re in favour of that. We’re really, really strongly in favour of controlling the epidemic.
“But for the government to act outrageously, just on the personal whim of the Premier, is just extraordinary.”
VCAT had been asked to overturn a decision of the secretary of the Department of Health to refuse compensation of $24,000 a week to a single franchisee who was prevented from operating his business during the lockdowns.
The department refused to produce copies of documents created in the process of preparing 31 specified directions between July 31 and October 27, 2020.
The documents sought include all drafts of any of the 31 directions, memorandums, instructions, advice and similar documents received from chief health officer Professor Brett Sutton or the Department of Health.
But VCAT member Jonathan Smithers refused the request, saying “the documents sought are not relevant to the review of the secretary’s decision of September 28, 2020”.