Politics

All The Groups That Have Been (Wrongly) Blamed For Victoria’s Coronavirus Spike

"Remember when all the critics wouldn't shut up about the need for more family gatherings?"

by Rachael Conaghan  1 July 2020
#StopAdani Melbourne protest

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When coronavirus restrictions were first rolled out, Victoria had some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country.

It sucked. But it was necessary.

At the time people mostly accepted it, knowing it was unavoidable if we wanted to stop the pandemic from spreading and, you know, killing a whole bunch of people.

But there were people out there who were extraordinary critical of the measures put in place to save people’s lives.

Well, on June 1 those people got what they wanted — hooray for the economy, I guess — when the Victorian government eased some of its coronavirus restrictions. About two and a half weeks later, they began to see an increase in cases.

Before restrictions were loosened we were warned to expect a possible increase in cases, and that prediction has come to fruition.

Yesterday Victoria reported another 64 new cases — it’s fourteenth day with a double digit increase. Since Thursday 233 new cases have been detected.

As a result the government has been forced to backtrack, re-imposing Stage 3 restrictions on ten “hot zones” responsible for the big spike in new cases. You can find the full details here.

Now suddenly those people who advocated for restrictions to ease are scrambling to find some way to place the blame back on the groups they feel most comfortable demonising –minority groups and human rights protesters, basically.

All in all, it’s been very unhelpful.

So, here’s a list of all the groups that have been blamed for Victoria’s new spike. For added fun, see if you can spot a pattern!

The Melbourne Sudanese Community

On Friday Peta Credlin — former chief of staff to then-PM Tony Abbott/ current presenter on Sky News — copped huge backlash for a dog-whistling, racist segment where she blamed South Sudanese migrants for Melbourne’s coronavirus outbreak.

During her Friday show she criticised migrant groups for not speaking English, and claimed attempts to reach them in their first languages (like Dinka) had failed because they could not read it.

She also claimed “poorly-assimilated migrants” had ignored social distancing by celebrating an “end-of-Ramadan feast”, before referencing the South Sudanese community.

For anyone who bothers to get their facts straight, that feast is actually called Eid al-Fitr. Again for anyone who bothers to get their facts straight, it’s also worth pointing out that about 90 percent of South Sudanese people in Victoria are Christian, and therefore very, very unlikely to be taking part in a Muslim tradition.

“This just underscores why new migrants need to urgently learn English … so that they can quickly become part of mainstream Australian society,” Credlin said.

“When are we going to wake up to the fact that encouraging people to live here as South Sudanese speaking Dinka, rather than as Australians speaking English, is not good for our society?

“It’s not good for cohesion and not even good for our recently arrived migrants.”

The segment quickly copped a huge backlash, and on Monday Sky News issued an apology.

In a statement, the Society of South Sudanese Professionals pointed out that there have been extremely low numbers of infection in the South Sudanese community.

They also dismissed her claims that many migrants, especially women, cannot read Dinka because they were banned from going to school.

“This is false … The war and other factors meant many children were unable to go to school, but this was not ideological and not something the migrant community has continued in Australia,” they said.

“Moreover, the Dinka language has 64 dialects spoken by Victoria’s South Sudanese community.

“If someone cannot read Dinka, they often have the option of an audio resource. Communication within the community is also strong and people are as aware of the social-distancing restrictions as everyone else in Australia.”

Muslim Communities

Last week it was first reported in The Australian that a family celebrating Eid was “the cause of one of Victoria’s biggest family clusters”.

It said that around 14 cases have been linked to a gathering in Coburg, celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month, back when gatherings of more than five people were banned.

In the same article, albeit seven paragraphs later, it also reported that the same number of cases had also been linked to security contractors working at a CBD hotel where overseas travellers have been quarantining.

Today, the premier confirmed that is actually where a significant number of cases have come from — staff members breaching infection control protocols.

As a result, Premier Daniel Andrews has ordered an inquiry into the hotel outbreak.

Earlier this month, Muslim community leaders said they were terrified the original reports would lead to a new wave of racism against their community.

Ramadan is a month typically full of family celebrations. However, Adel Salman, the vice-president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, told The Guardian most Muslims willingly made sacrifices because that was what was required.

“Muslims acted very responsibly. I could not say that every single Muslim family complied, obviously, but … all the information that we’ve received is that Muslims acted very, very responsibly,” he said.

In May Scott Morrison used an Eid message to thank Australian Muslims for the sacrifices they made throughout Ramadan.

Black Lives Matter Protesters

On June 6, thousands of protesters took to the streets in every state and territory in Australia.

Since then, Australia’s chief medial officer Brendan Murphy and Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton have both shot down any suggestion the protests had an impact on the increase.

Sutton bluntly told reporters, “I don’t think the Black Lives Matter protest has contributed. We’re not seeing people who’ve clearly acquired it there”.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth also said, “There are three cases that have been diagnosed as people who have COVID-19 and attended the Black Lives Matter protest, but there is no evidence that there has been chains of community transmission that we are aware of through the Black Lives Matter protests.”

However, Health Minister Greg Hunt was still keen to shift the blame onto these protesters anyway — he believes they undermined the government’s social distancing message.

“Particularly since the protests, many Victorians and many Australians have said, ‘if it is OK for 10,000 people to congregate and huddle together, surely it would be OK for 10 and my family’,” Hunt said last week.

One could argue there’s also a pretty high chance the government’s announcement that people would now be allowed to gather together might have contributed to people thinking it would be ok to gather together.

On June 1, the Victorian government lifted restrictions to allow 20 people to gather together, both indoors and outdoors, as long as social distancing is adhered to.

Never ones to let facts get in the way of a good argument, other politicians have been quick to disregard the advice of medical experts and try to demonise the movement.

For the last few weeks, the Victorian Premier has copped huge backlash from conservatives complaining about how strict restrictions had been.

Now that the state is seeing a huge increase in cases, the collective amnesia from those who railed against the lockdown is staggering.

News Corps’ Herald Sun had been running a ‘Kickstart campaign’ which pushed the government to reopen the state — a month ago they heralded the easing of restriction as a “major victory”.

Similarly, LNP MP Tim Smith coined the nickname ‘Chairman Dan’ for Daniel Andrews, who he spent weeks criticising for not opening pubs and restaurants sooner.

And who can forget Sam Newman’s meltdown on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament building because he wasn’t allowed to play golf for a few weeks?

Now, businesses in Melbourne’s ten hot zones will be under lockdown for another four weeks, and people will not be allowed to leave their homes unless it’s for four essential reasons.

“Very clearly, this is not where we wanted to be,” the premier said in a statement.

“I understand people are tired. We’re all frustrated. We all just want things to go back to how they once were. And the sooner we all do the right thing, the sooner we can beat this.”

You can find out more details on the new restrictions here.