Today in a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Federal Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters warned that allowing Bendigo businesses to open up and trade was “really quite scary.”
In her alarmist comments, she said: “The opening up, just a warning for everyone, is really quite scary for businesses … opening up is scary.”
With Bendigo having a first vaccination rate of more than 95 per cent, Ms Chesters’ comments demonstrate she is tone deaf to the pleas from retail, hospitality and tourism businesses which are desperate to open properly.
Daniel Andrews and his government must give Victorians the same freedoms as NSW. This includes green lighting Covidsafe events, allowing retail businesses to trade indoors and permitting hospitality to reopen with sensible density quotients (DQ4 indoors and DQ2 outdoors) with no overarching cap.
The prohibition on Melburnians travelling to regional Victoria must also be reversed.
The Morrison Government has provided Victorians in excess of $49 billion in federal economic support over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, including through the COVID-19 Disaster Payment and the Commonwealth’s share of the jointly funded business support package.
It is time Ms Chesters laid out the welcome mat to Bendigo businesses and workers rather than continue to shut the door.
19 October 2021