“This bill is a very dangerous overreach, placing all power – all power – in the premier, with no oversight, a massive threat to an Australian democracy, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said.
But Mr Andrews and Health Minister Martin Foley told parliament that these pandemic-specific laws – ahead of the current state of emergency powers expiring on December 15 – were sought by the opposition and cross-bench MPs.
Liberal leader Matthew Guy says Victoria’s new pandemic emergency powers bill is a “dangerous overreach” and should be opposed. Joe Armao
“They didn’t want to see the state of emergency powers extended any more,” Mr Foley told parliament.
But Mr Guy said these powers, which are expected to pass the lower house on Wednesday, went further than was ever proposed.
“No one talked about imposing the ability of the premier to shut down a protest or individuals on the basis of their characteristics,” Mr Guy said.
But the bill looks set to pass into law. The Andrews government needs to secure the votes of three independent MPs in the Legislative Council to pass the legislation and has already secured the votes of Fiona Patten, Andy Meddick and Samantha Ratnam.
The Human Rights Law Centre legal director Daniel Webb said there were some positive aspects of the laws, including “greater transparency” and that it “creates an expert advisory committee to scrutinise and report on health orders” and “improved privacy safeguards around QR code and other tracing information”.
However, he said, “one area of concern is the fact there seems to be no outer limit on how long pandemic declarations can last”.
The push for an overhaul of emergency powers came as the state’s outbreak finally appears to be waning but with Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton warning there would not be a sharp fall in cases.
The seven-day case average has fallen to 1841, down from 1971, and Tuesday marked the fourth day in a row of falling numbers, after the state recorded 1510 cases. Four deaths were also recorded, with a total of 235 deaths since the outbreak began n early August.
“It’s not going to be a dramatic decrease in numbers, we are opening up after all, but I think we have seen that peak,” Professor Sutton said.
”I think we’re slowly trending down. It will go up again, we’re opening up, there’ll be rate of transmission, but that real protection is, as we’ve always said, higher and higher vaccination coverage, and eventually protecting our numbers in ICU.”
Professor Sutton noted the key health indicators had not moved significantly for a week, signalling the worst of the health impact from the outbreak is over. Hospitalisation numbers have been broadly steady with the seven-day average down slightly to 789 admissions.
With the 12-week ban on Melburnians travelling to the regions set to end on Friday, Professor Sutton said all the regional local government areas had reached 94 per cent first dose coverage, above the state average of 91.6 first dose adult coverage.
“That is more equitable for regions than in any other jurisdiction in Australia.”
All states have struggled to lift regional vaccination rates. NSW has delayed travel from Sydney to the regions until November 1 to allow more time to lift vaccination levels in the regions.
Amid questions if unvaccinated tennis players could compete at the Australian Open in January, Mr Andrews argued that only vaccinated players should participate.
“To my mind, I can’t understand why the Commonwealth government would let anybody in that was not an Australian and had not been double-dose vaccinated,” Andrews says.
“That would not make any sense to me,” Mr Andrews said. “The ball kids will have to be vaccinated if they are over the age of 12, everybody going there will be double vaccinated, the staff will be double vaccinated.”
ATP Tennis players had been told unvaccinated players could compete, but would have to quarantine for 14 days.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFmci5jb20vcG9saWN5L2hlYWx0aC1hbmQtZWR1Y2F0aW9uL2RhbmllbC1hbmRyZXdzLXBhbmRlbWljLXBvd2VyLWdyYWItY29uZGVtbmVkLTIwMjExMDI2LXA1OTM4M9IBAA?oc=5
2021-10-26 07:23:00Z
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