Vic’s border permit system is bureaucratic nonsense

But I was among those daring Victorians who decided to take the gamble, recently shooting off to the Sunshine State for a week. Packed safely in my baggage was my very first border permit — better known as a “Victorian Visa” — which was essential to ensure I could get back into my home state without being slapped with a $5000 fine. But in reality it’s just more ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense enforced by Premier Daniel Andrews and undoubtedly unnecessary rule-making rolled out under the cover of COVID. Leaving Tullamarine Airport on what should be a busy Monday morning was far from what most travellers would be familiar with — the terminal looked like a ghost town, retailers closed up and passengers few and far between. Before departing there was no COVID check-in process upon entering the airport terminal building, no temperature checks before boarding the plane and little social distancing once the dozens of us who were flying out queued to get on the plane.As soon as passengers arrived in Queensland, they stripped off their masks and it could be counted on one hand how many people in the week I spent in the Sunshine State bothered to don a mask. On returning home the plane home was jam packed — not a single seat vacant.Surely if COVID is so deadly, passengers should be spaced out?Again, there were no temperature checks before setting foot on the aircraft home from Queensland, nor was there any social distancing on the flight.If anyone was sick on the plane, you wouldn’t know it because something as simple as zapping passengers’ foreheads to check their temperatures before they jumped on-board failed to be done.

But the height of ridiculousness in Victoria was for all to see once arriving back into Melbourne. At Tullamarine the full plane of passengers waited patiently on-board the aircraft parked on the tarmac before everyone was finally allowed to disembark and be herded onto awaiting buses like sheep.Again no social distancing, in fact frustrated passengers were jammed onto the buses — similar to those ones in Europe when you are transiting between terminals — on a scorching hot summer’s day shoulder to shoulder. There was no chance of being able to stay 1.5m apart. Many passengers vented their annoyance at the recently rolled out system that requires passengers to go through a special airport entry and have their Victorian border permits carefully checked. I’m sure many would be eager to see the “data and the science” to ascertain why we need these permits in the first place.Victorians have been repeatedly lectured that all measures are a result of the best health advice, but this critical information is rarely shown to the public.So why were passengers packed onto buses like sardines without staying 1.5m apart?Why weren’t temperature checks done before even getting on a plane before leaving Melbourne or flying back into the Victorian capital to reduce any chance that a passenger was carrying COVID-19?

And what use is the border permit system when clearly there are serious cracks already appearing only a few weeks in? On talkback radio in recent days multiple callers explained how they flew into Melbourne Airport and never had their border permit checked. How does this happen? Why have a system if it’s only going to operate on a haphazard basis? Finally we were marched into the terminal in single file — and that’s when social distancing kicked in. We were met by dozens of officials swarming in full PPE (personal protective equipment), checking passengers had correctly filled out their Victorian Visa – a strange welcoming home to say the least. Again, more bureaucratic nonsense that only some states including Victoria have decided to enforce. But just like Daniel Andrews’ right royal stuff-up of hotel quarantine, clearly lessons haven’t been learned.If all passengers aren’t being checked when disembarking into Melbourne, then clearly there are gaping holes in this pointless permit system. It seems to be the way Victoria operates — blanket over-the-top rules that are an over-reaction after the bungling of the state’s shambolic hotel quarantine. Who can forget the rule that required all Victorians to wear masks outside even if they were wandering around on their lonesome? How many lives were actually saved by this draconian measure?And so too the 8pm curfew that Melburnians endured for months on end — why was COVID deadly at certain times of the day?Yet again NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has shown when there is an outbreak, there’s no need to send an entire capital city into lockdown. She’s shown how the health, economic and social impacts of an outbreak can be safely managed without enforcing draconian measures. If only the Victorian Premier would take a leaf out of Premier Berejiklian’s COVID handbook.
sophie.elsworth@news.com.au

@sophieelsworth