10th Sept. 2020

The additional crisis we now face, compounding the COVID pandemic, is a catastrophic trust deficit in the Government, not the Police. A deficit that transcends partisan politics within the community who will readily and severely mark down any politician that deliberately misleads them.

The touch paper has been put to the wick.

The revelation about the introduction of a curfew imposed by the Victorian Government as part of the COVID response has now been exposed as not based on any medical advice, as we were told.

The next question is whether this was a conclusion reached in modelling and output from the ‘Supercomputer’, and what other aspects of the restrictions are not based on medical advice? All data must now be released.

Dr Brian McNamee AO MBBS, FTSE, Chairman of the Commonwealth Serum Labourites (CSL) in a wide-ranging critical expert assessment of the current Victorian response to the COVID Pandemic was particularly critical of the Curfew imposed as part of stage four.

He also called for the resignation of the Chief Commissioner quoted as saying,
(Dr McNamee)
“The problem is we’re all losing confidence because every time we learn something new, it isn’t what we
understood. Is it true that we’re mainly in Curfew because of the police force?”

(Journalist)
“THAT’S MY UNDERSTANDING …”
(Dr McNamee)
“The Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police should resign over that. That he imprisoned his fellow citizens not on
medical advice but for rostering convenience is such an abrogation of duty. I’m stunned. It’s shocking. It’s
wrong.”

As disturbed as the CAA is with the application of a curfew, and what amounts to half a step back from Martial Law, this has nothing to do with Victoria Police or more particularly the Chief Commissioner.

The Chief Commissioner has now publicly confirmed that Victoria Police did not request the Curfew and were nor consulted on it – this raises other serious questions. Just who, or is, anybody advising the Premier and why he didn’t the Premier seek advice from the most logical expert – the Chief Commissioner.

The police role in society is, among other things, to enforce the laws, they do not make them. They are purely the instrument and applier of rules made by the Government, as they should be.

The CAA share the community outrage against the draconian aspects of the COVID response but has empathy with the Chief Commissioner and all Police in Victoria having to enforce unrealistic and very unpopular rules.
But, that is the police task, and if the truth be known, the Police as members of the community share the community’s frustration but must put personal feelings aside and do their job.

The Premier has admitted that implementing the Curfew was not based on medical advice; it was his decision. It will be interesting how he obtains the authority to make such directions, isn’t it the role of the Chief Medical Officer who must decree by order? The Premiers only defence so far is that he is entitled to make decisions which may not necessarily comply strictly with the CMO’s order but follows his intent. This is a completely new slant on the interpretations of the Law. We are sure this will be fleshed out in the now inevitable Royal Commission that must now be called.

The Premier, by owning this decision, makes it his responsibility and the consequences of that decision rests with him, and him alone. There will be no going back now that he has ‘blown the gaff’, on himself.

The issue above all others is that the Premier misled (the most flattering descriptor) all Victorians because we all believed that the Curfew was implemented on medical advice as part of the COVID strategy.

Of most significance is that this deceit by the Premier now brings into sharp focus all the other components of the restrictions. How many of those are based on medical advice or are simply arbitrary impositions applied by the will of the Premier?

Were all the restrictions to activities that have very low or extremely low chances of transmission risk, applied on the medical advice of the Chief Medical Officer? Golf, Fishing, the 5k radius, unable to shop with a partner, unable to have an immediate relative visit, compulsory masks when out walking, all retail business closed, the list goes on, but we are entitled to know.

It is time that the Premier came clean with the truth whatever that is and ‘bell the cat’, because, at this stage, we do not know what to believe anymore.