Over the last week, the Rule of Law Institute of Australia has raised concerns about the emergency measures implemented to fight Covid-19. 

Robin Speed, President of the Institute, as quoted in the Australian stated “there has not been proper checks and balances applied to lockdown measures such as the curfew and 5km travel limit in Melbourne… the fact that there has been so few parliamentary sitting and no debate by MP’s eroded public trust.” 

Chris Merritt, Vice President of the Institute, spoke to Peta Credlin about the lack of parliamentary accountability and oversight in Victoria and said “it is June since the lower house last sat and we have not even had the full cabinet in Victoria keeping an eye on things, its been a sub-committee of 8 ministers, that is not enough.. orders that take away people’s rights to leave their homes, that empower state officials to enter homes without a search warrant..  that limits people’s ability to move freely within the state of Victoria. That is not good enough… [we should] not have the chief health officer determining whether these things go ahead but the Parliament, or at the very least a committee made up of representative parties in the Parliament so that people will have confidence in that.  At the moment, it is subject to criticism because of the lack of respect for democratic norms.”

Malcolm Stewart, senior Vice President of the Institute spoke be to the Western Victoria Matters series on Thursday 3rd September about Victoria’s continuing lockdown and the overreach of State Powers.