Australian State Lockdown Most Severe Outside of Wuhan Says Former PM Tony Abbott

Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott speaks to the media during a press conference at the conclusion of the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014. AP Photo/Rob Griffith

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has accused the Victorian government of establishing a “health dictatorship” to respond to the CCP virus and said that tough border restrictions by other jurisdictions are economically unsustainable.

Ahead of a visit to the UK parliament house Westminster in London to discuss the UK-Australia cross-border trade agreements, Abbott on Sept. 1 gave a speech for British think-tank Exchange Policy.

During his speech, he was critical of the draconian measures implemented by Victoria premier Daniel Andrews since the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus spread from Wuhan, China in January.

“For more than six months now in Victoria, under disaster and emergency declarations, homes can be entered, people can be detained, and the ordinary law of the land suspended,” he said.

“And the premier now wants to extend this health dictatorship for at least another six months.”

The Labor Victorian government last night won a majority vote to extend the state of emergency for six months.

Andrews enacted strict stage four lockdown restrictions following CCP virus new cases reaching highs over 600.

Two months prior, Australia was recording low virus Abbot said, “virtually zero community transmission until the extraordinary ineptitude of the Victorian Government in the management of its hotel quarantine system, produced.”

“What has been the biggest outbreak in Australia, so far, responded to with the most severe lockdown tried anywhere in the world outside of Wuhan itself,” he said.

Abbot said there is no assurance lockdowns bring health benefits, but we are sure it hurts economies. He added, “if you look at the virtual house arrest that five and a half million people of Melbourne have been under for the last month. We’re conscious of the psychic damage that it can do.”

He urged states to ease border restrictions which have been in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 disease.

“As with the Spanish Flu state border closures, only worse, it’s been every jurisdiction for itself, in the form of pandemic protectionism,” Abbot said.

States such as Western Australia and South Australia have “virtually no corona cases,” Abbot explained, but they are keeping borders closed from others with low cases figures.

“States that want to admit foreign students, because they need the money, don’t want to admit Australians from another state,” he said.

Abbott said the CCP virus restrictions are not economically sustainable, estimated costs so far for the federal government to be around $300 billion, he urged state premiers to consider if “the cure was proportionate to the disease.”

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Aug. 31 that Victoria’s lockdown had had a “devastating impact on the economy.”

An estimated 60 percent of Australia’s 2.24 million people on JobKeeper by the end of the year will be from the Victoria.