Any remaining notions of politicians acting with honesty, integrity, and best available science in the face of a pandemic have been crushed like a child discovering that Santa Claus writes unmistakably like Mum, after a five-year legal battle by the opposition’s upper house leader, David Davis, to access Covid lockdown documents.

Much like Dr Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases admitting in his testimony to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that the 6-foot social distancing rule wasn’t based on science and “It sort of just appeared”, the locking up of 5 million Melbournians, preventing them from leaving home between 8 pm and 5 am during lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, was purely political.

The Freedom of Information documents reveal an email exchange between former chief health officer Brett Sutton and public health commander Dr Finn Romanes after the first curfew was announced in August 2020. They reveal that the curfew didn’t arise from public health advice but from the former Premier Daniel Andrews’ cabinet, which included the current Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.

Mr Davis said the exchange contradicted Mr Andrews’ repeated claims during the pandemic that his decisions and announcements were based on health advice.

” … the idea of a curfew has not arisen from public health advice in the first instance,” Dr Romanes wrote.

“In this way, the action of issuing a curfew is a mirror to the state of disaster and is not occurring on public health advice, but is a decision taken by cabinet and announced today, as an important step in the response.”

In his response, Professor Sutton said “There appears to be merit in it limiting opportunities for transmission, perhaps especially in high risk cohorts”.

It appears Melbourne, as the only Australian city to be placed under a Covid curfew, was the result of a thought bubble to align with the government declaring a state of disaster, with Victoria also seeing fit to suspend parliament.

“What it shows is late in the afternoon, after — after — the curfew has been announced by Daniel Andrews at a press conference in the middle of the afternoon, Finn Romanes seeking approval from Brett Sutton to declare a curfew through the use of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act powers,” Mr Davis stated to the media.

“Both powers require scientific decision-making, proper decision-making.’

“It’s clear that the decision had been made by Daniel Andrews prior to any of this scientific information being presented.”

“This is quite serious, in many respects, because of the huge impact of the curfew on businesses, on households, older people, young children,” Mr Davis said.

Australia’s response to Covid has already been the subject of a damning report by the Australian Human Rights Commission. Titled Collateral Damage, the report surveyed more than 5,000 Australians and claimed the avoidable “harms” were worsened by the government’s lack of compassion.

“These measures, justified on the grounds of protecting public health and vulnerable populations, led to ethical and legal debate about proportionality, necessity, and the balance between collective welfare and personal freedoms,” the report wrote.

Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay said while “the pandemic response saved lives, it also came at a significant cost”.

“In our research, we heard devastating stories of severe economic hardship, families unable to say goodbye to loved ones, women trapped in violent households, and communities left isolated due to blanket policies that failed to consider local realities. These experiences should never be ignored or repeated,” she added.

Despite the revelations and the trail of destruction left on the state’s economy, kids’ education, small businesses, people’s mental health and the loss of trust for many in the medical fraternity, the Victorian Government doubled down on its decisions.

“We did what was needed to protect Victorians in the face of an unprecedented global pandemic,” a government spokesperson said.

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 24 April 2025.