Beverley McArthur MP, Member for Western Victoria Region, Media Release, 4 March 2022

Last week, I supported a motion by the Liberal Democrats’ David Limbrick to end COVID-19 mandates in Victoria, sending the matter to the new ALP-fortified ‘independent’ body to review Pandemic Bill impacts.

Quite simply, it went to the heart of freedom of choice, liberty and the right of individuals to be individuals.

For the past two years Victorians have suffered at the hands of big government. The rules and decrees that were meant to save us from a virus have, in many regards, caused more damage than the virus itself.

Victorians were locked up. Borders became cruel lines on a map, iron curtains unable to be crossed. The decisions on this matter alone were considered among the worst the Victorian Ombudsman said she had ever seen in her time in the job. “Inhumane” was the word she used.

Segregation – the brutal classification of people based purely on vaccination status – has become a political weapon to formulate society.

This government says it has saved us from the virus. Now it needs to save us from the inevitable deaths that will happen because of its chronic neglect of the Victorian hospital and health system and the cruelling of the elective surgery list.

The term ‘elective’ is of course a misnomer, for there is nothing elective about it; it is vital and essential surgery. No-one chooses debilitating conditions and pain.

Daniel Andrews’ big government has imposed too much, asked too much and demanded too much from every Victorian.

The Pandemic Bill, quickly activated, has merely enabled the long, long shadow of control to hang over us. This shadow delivers doubt to businesses, to schools, to the sick. It demands a loss of freedom and choice and requires a homogenous, monolithic response to all parts of our lives.

Mandates are the weapon of choice in this. They fail any test of nuance or understanding. They fail logic.

This country of ours has thrived on choice. It is by choice that millions of migrants come here. People choose what they want to be, and they get to choose who they want to run this great country.

Australia’s vaccination rates are globally leading.

It is time we move on from mandates and to actively live with this thing. Having been clipped mightily, our economy must spread its wings.

With exceptions for particular workplaces and circumstances, mandating vaccines has rarely been the right thing to do: sensible Australians have always made the best decisions for themselves, and their families, guided by good information. We rather like the carrot, and not so much the stick.

And yet, still ringing in my ears are the Premier’s words from last year: “We had no choice”.