1. For those now hassling @DanielAndrewsMP about why Mildura isn’t opened up, here’s a short thread.

I was in Mildura some weeks ago before lockdown kicked in again. I was sitting outside at a cafe, & a man sitting at the next (socially distanced) table was regaling his mates.

2. He was telling them how he’d come up from Melb 4 days earlier, even though that wasn’t permitted. He was laughing about how he evaded the harder Melbourne lockdown.

He was sitting at a table with 4 other people, none of them worried about breathing in his (potential) virus.

3. If the VIC govt. announced less-strict rules in some areas of regional VIC, ppl would rush from harder locked-down areas to less locked-down areas in the few days between announcing new rules & implementing them. We’ve already seen this many times on previous occasions.

4. Ppl rushed from Melb to the Mornington Peninsula some weeks ago, spreading virus there. Others rushed out of Melb to country VIC (many came to my small town) & brought cases here.

Journos, just fucking stop with second-guessing health teams on this. They know human behaviour.

5. Nearly all those rushing to safer places are fucking arseholes. A few have good reasons. But opening up places like Mildura without being able to heavily enforce those coming in as a result is madness.

Be aware too: INTELLIGENT LOCALS DO NOT WANT UNEVEN OPENING UP.

6. Of course, there are ppl in Mildura who don’t understand why they’re in lockdown with no cases. But most of us in small towns know if our town is opened up while others remain closed, our residents are immediately at higher risk from ppl rushing here. We don’t want this. End.