Ahead of this afternoon’s scheduled National Cabinet announcement from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, reports swirling this morning suggest that Victoria – who has heretofore provided some of the most dogged resistance to Federal pressure on repealing lockdown measures – is preparing to relax its particularly strict lockdown conditions this coming Monday, with residents in the state set to be allowed to have indoor gatherings of up to 10 people.
UPDATE: Since the publication of this story, the PM has announced his three-stage plan, stage one of which allows five people to visit a home and up to 10 people to be in one place at one time. (As in: if you’re a household of five, you can have another five people over, but you simply cannot have six. Time to ruthlessly boot the group clinger.) As expected, Victoria won’t announce when it’s moving to stage one until Monday, but you can read our quick and dirty guide right here.
According to the Herald Sun, Premier Daniel Andrews will implement the roll back on Monday, which is when Victoria’s current state of emergency order expires. Any roll back of the restrictions will not be done in time for Mother’s Day on Sunday, with the state of emergency order to run its course in full rather than be pinched off for the sake of the upcoming weekend.
With the National Cabinet meeting today set to come to some sort of agreement on a month-to-month framework for the easing of restrictions, which will see lockdowns in various states rolled back in four-week stages, it’s understood Victoria’s measures will involve allowing indoor gatherings of up to 10 people as well as a relaxation of outdoor gathering restrictions.
That would put things like small house or birthday parties, backyard BBQs, and things of that nature will be back on table for Victorians. However despite the relaxed conditions, restrictions will still be enforceable by police.
It’s not clear at this stage whether Victoria will ultimately bow to Federal pressure to reopen schools, which the Federal Government sees as a matter of urgency in its plan to re-open the economy as soon as possible.
An announcement of the National Cabinet decisions is expected to be made by Prime Minister Morrison later today.
