Give Victorians the facts on the abattoir outbreak

I would like to express my extreme concern at the Victorian Health Minister’s refusal to name the meat processing plant where a serious outbreak of coronavirus has occurred.

We, the Victorian public – and the consumers of the meat produced by that processing plant – were informed instead that the state health department did not consider the outbreak to present a ‘significant’ risk to the general public.  Indeed, we were blithely assured that our meat remains safe to eat regardless of whether or not it comes from the coronavirus riddled location.

How, may I ask, are we to accept the word of whichever health minister deemed this to be a ‘significant’ on ‘insignificant’ risk?  I accept that the meat plant has been closed for cleaning, but clearly not before possibly infected meat supplies were shipped to an unknown number of supermarkets for unwitting consumers to buy and eat.

As for the situation being ‘under control’ and posing ‘no significant risk’, hasn’t the Newmarch House nursing home in Sydney been ‘under control’ for the past three weeks?  And yet, despite the site being thoroughly cleaned and its staff tested, the death toll has reached 14 and is still rising.  Indeed, residents are still becoming infected.

State and Federal governments should trust the Australian people to assess what is, and is not, a significant risk to our health. They should not hide the facts from us under the disguise of commercial confidence or individual privacy.

Trust works both ways

I, along with 4 million fellow Aussies, have downloaded the Federal government’s “covidsafe” app, regardless of privacy concerns, because we face a life or death situation in the midst of this pandemic.  Our individual privacy is secondary to our national health issues. Can the government, our health system and our state ministers not show the same trust and consideration that we give them in being straight with the Australian people?

The Victorian government should tell the public which abattoir is involved, just as schools and offices which suffered outbreaks were publicly identified. If the plant is not revealed, then I for one will not be buying any meat from my retailer, supermarket or butchers for at least the next 3 weeks by which time any covid-infected meat products will have left the shelves or been disposed of by suspicious customers.

The government has stressed the seriousness of the pandemic for weeks, and virtually confined us to our homes, so we are well aware that no one has this virus ‘under control’.  No responsible authority can claim the meat packing outbreak ‘poses no significant risk’ to consumers.

I do not understand why the Victorian government is attempting to sell this line to their electorate.  Not a single responsible country across the globe, and certainly not the World Health Organisation, has ever tried claiming that the situation is under such control.

On the contrary, Government ministers continually tell us the situation remains ‘very dangerous’ and that a ‘ second wave’ of infections could break out if we let down our guard.  Although the numbers of new infections are encouraging, the fragile nature of the recovery is stressed by leaders across the globe on a daily basis.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has my respect and admiration for the calm, decisive way in which he has handled the crisis, and for the concern he has shown for the health of the Victorian people.  I remain a strong supporter of the man at the top, but I am losing faith in the conduct of his health department and their advisors unless they put all the facts on the table for the Victorian people to see.

Let the public decide

No one can safely assess the risk the virus may pose to our food supply because we still don’t know enough about this virus. Whether or not the risk to our food is ‘significant’ should therefore be left up to us, the consumers, to decide.

Treating us like sheep or children by keeping us in the dark about crucial health issues is not only un-Australian, undemocratic and unacceptable behaviour from our so called health department, but it verges on communist authoritarianism.   In a democratic state, the government should not be the sole arbiter of what the people of their nation are allowed to know, or what is kept from them despite its potential consequences.

Is this reticence on the government’s part simply a matter of money? An attempt to ensure that the meat supplies the public would otherwise not buy won’t be discarded and that supermarkets won’t lose a fraction of profit?

I doubt that I am alone in my misgivings.  We have been asked to sacrifice a lot in the fight against COVID-19.  People have lost their short-term liberty and perhaps their long-term livelihoods, yet we remain united to protect each other.  The least we can expect from government ministers who expect our trust – and enforce our compliance – is some transparency about the threats we face together.