By Alesha Capone
Postcode-specific restrictions should be considered as a future alternative to statewide lockdowns, according to the Victorian members of the Committees for Cities and Regions, including Wyndham.
The Committees for Cities and Regions (CFCR) is a group of not-for-profit, member-based organisations, which represents business, not-for-profit, education, health and community organisations.
The Committee for Wyndham (C4W) is a member of the CFCR, along with the Committee for Geelong, Committee for Melbourne and Committee for Ballarat.
The CFCR last week issued a statement calling for a “more nuanced response” to managing COVID outbreaks, including doing away with the metro-regional divide when it comes to lockdowns, introducing postcode-specific restrictions and “clear guidance to give Victorian industry confidence to invest and employ”.
“We need to start planning for the long term as we learn to live with this virus and potentially face ongoing bio-security threats,” the statement said.
C4W chief executive Barbara McLure said the unpredictability of government decision making contributed “to the general unease in the community about unforeseeable restrictions that could be imposed at any time”.
“We need to protect the Wyndham/Victorian/Melbourne brand, that Wyndham continues to be a very good and supportive place to do business,” Ms McLure said.
“We don’t want businesses relocating interstate or seeking to establish interstate because of the uncertainty surrounding our lack of COVID future planning. “
Ms McLure said the government could develop a long-term plan to let businesses know when a lockdown or restrictions would be introduced, based on factors such as community transmission numbers and the number of postcodes affected to enforce total lockdown.
“I think people want a clear and consistent approach to reopening and locking down our economy,” she said.
“This approach needs to be informed by industry and it needs to be publicly available.
“Business needs to be able to plan and need to know what the triggers are.”
