Legal groups have warned against Victoria’s plan to extend its state of emergency by 12 months, arguing that to comply with human rights obligations parliament should favour the “most limited possible option” when granting extraordinary powers.
Victorian law currently allows the government to declare a state of emergency for four weeks at a time and to extend that declaration for up to six months.
The state government declared a state of emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic on 16 March and has renewed it six times in four-week increments.
The current state of emergency declaration expires on 13 September – three days before the six-month time limit expires.
On Monday the premier, Daniel Andrews, said he would ask parliament to extend the allowable period for a state of emergency to 12 months, and then renew it, allowing Victoria to remain in a state of emergency until September next year.
Separately, he indicated the AFL grand final would be held outside Melbourne for the first time.
It comes as Victoria recorded 15 deaths and 116 new Covid cases, the lowest daily increase in case numbers in seven weeks. To date, 517 people have died in Australia after testing positive to Covid-19, including more than 400 in Victoria’s second wave.
NSW recorded three new cases, two in hotel quarantine and one person who was a close contact of a previously identified case. Also, a hotel quarantine security guard who tested positive for Covid-19 last week was fined twice for allegedly breaching self-isolation rules. One case was recorded in Queensland.
The state of emergency declaration, made under Victoria’s Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, allows the chief health officer to issue enforceable public health directions – like the stay at home orders, rules around mass gatherings, the requirement that people with the virus self-isolate, and the requirement to wear face masks.
The requirement for international travellers to self-isolate for 14 days is also enforced under the state of emergency powers.
“We simply can’t have those important rules and the legal framework that sits behind them, we cannot have that end on 13 September because this will not have ended on 13 September,” Andrews told reporters.
Andrews said it was “not an unlimited extension” and the government would continue to have to apply the order in four-week blocks. But he said that if a vaccine is not found by September 2021, it may need to be extended again.
“If there is a vaccine before then, or if circumstances change dramatically, you would always adjust your rules, according to that,” he said. “But I think we have to accept that this is with us for a considerable time in one form or another.”
Isabelle Reinecke, the executive director of the Grata Fund, which is part of a group monitoring the laws introduced under Covid-19, said that while she believed the Andrews government was acting with public health in mind, the underlying principle of emergency powers is that parliaments should enact “the most limited possible option” to minimise the impact on human rights.
RELATED ARTICLES
- Australia's Rush to Cashless Society Ignites Fury
- Australia Wants to Launch Digital ID This Year
- Brazil's Ministry Of Health Mandates Covid Jabs For Children As Young As 6 Months
- Italian Health Minister Faces Murder Charges Over COVID-19 Vaccine Deaths
- Australia says COVID-19 is back, Tells Citizens to Get more Vaccine Doses
Loading ...
The Bureaucrat Plague is the worst plague, ever..
So, with no vaccine to force on people, this totalitarian will leave people locked in their houses for over a year, preventing any chance of herd immunity taking hold any time soon. Said dictator, Daniel Andrews, has also made a name for himself by getting a law passed that makes victims of convicted rapists and child abusers subject to fines or imprisonment if they identify their abusers even AFTER a conviction. I wonder what he is trying to cover up.