Planting A Seed Of Covid Commonsense
The Victorian Health Minister has been urged to reconsider lockdown restrictions for outdoor nurseries.
While regional areas came out of full restrictions today, the possibility of further lockdowns remains real.
During lockdown, nurseries were considered non-essential and forced to observe ‘click and collect’ measures with minimal staff presence.
Member for Western Victoria, Bev McArthur, spoke in the Victorian Parliament this week about the absurd COVID-19 restrictions on nurseries, referencing the Kuranga Native Nursery in Mt Evelyn.
“It’s a terrific business which employs 49 staff and brings great joy to its customers. The health benefits of getting outside to garden, and enjoying the results, are well known,” Mrs McArthur said.
Kuranga grows around 100,000 plants in-house for the nursery.
“Yet despite this, as a ‘non-essential’ business it has been forced shut by the lockdown rules.”
She compared this with bottle shops that are considered essential, a discrepancy Mrs McArthur described as `nonsensical’.
“For this business, closure doesn’t just interrupt the cashflow, it writes off the stock.
“Plants are a living product that require care and expire after a certain date with only a small window in which many can remain potted.
“Given the mental health benefits, and the fact that nurseries are outdoors, controlled environments, surely some common-sense can be applied here,” she said.
The nursery has proposed less onerous, but responsible, alternate Covid operating arrangements:
Allowing customers to self-serve in an external environment
Capacity limits of 10 at a time (over the 2000m2 nursery)
Customers from within a 5km radius
A COVID marshal to oversee customer numbers and movement
“These proposals are incredibly fair and reasonable – especially given the density limits of 200m2 per person. Comparatively the Upper House of the Victorian Parliament has a limit of 53 people in a much smaller, confined space indoors.
“It’s the same old Government hypocrisy we keep seeing time and time again: one rule for a certain few and a tougher rule for everyone else.
“These businesses should be open now and remain open in the future.
“I implore the Minister to give this proposal a fair hearing and a rapid, positive response.”
“A summer of hot weather, few staff and lockdown impositions could literally kill nurseries across the state. This needs to be resolved now,” she said.
13 September 2021
