Original article by jack.paynter@news.com.au
A Melbourne cafe owner’s bid to sue the Andrews Government over its strict stay-at-home orders has received some high-profile support.
The Victorian Opposition has welcomed the Supreme Court challenge to Melbourne’s strict lockdown curfew, claiming it could have been imposed unlawfully.
Mornington Peninsula single mother-of-three Michelle Loielo has launched a legal challenge against Premier Daniel Andrews’ 9pm-to-5am curfew.
The cafe owner and Liberal Party member has filed documents in the Supreme Court asking to either quash the stay-at-home direction that includes the curfew or rule it unlawful.
Opposition leader Michael O’Brien said the curfew was wrong and welcomed the legal bid to have it overturned.
“(It) has no public health basis and is a massive imposition on the basic rights of Victorians,” Mr O’Brien said.
“The prospect that the Labor Government acted unlawfully in imposing this curfew should send a chill down the spine of every Victorian.
“It is in the public interest for the lawfulness of Labor’s curfew to be tested given how many Victorians are affected by it.”
Unica Cucina e Caffe restaurant owner Michelle Loielo is taking the Victorian government to court over lockdown restrictions.
He said more than 5 million Melburnians had been locked in their homes at night under the government’s curfew, despite the chief health officer and Victoria Police chief commissioner never requesting it.
Shadow attorney-general Edward O’Donohue said it was a vital public interest legal action that would “examine the power that Daniel Andrews has purported to exercise to impose the curfew”.
The curfew was introduced in early August to help battle Victoria’s deadly second wave of coronavirus and the Premier has attributed it to drastically reducing movement across the city.
“We’ve got a clear strategy, numbers are falling, the strategy is working,” Mr Andrews said last week.
Ms Loielo, who said the curfew had cost her 99 per cent of her business, has claimed it violated her rights to freedom, liberty and security.
A number of restrictions in Melbourne and regional Victoria have eased as part of a staged plan out of lockdown.
“If this curfew continues for much longer, I have grave fears for both my business and my ability to provide for my three children,” she said.
Lawyer Tony Carbone, who is fronting a separate class action against the government over job losses due to the restrictions imposed on Victorians, told the Today show he believed they had a very strong case.
“If it hadn’t have been for their bungled hotel quarantine program we wouldn’t have been in a situation we are in now,” he said.
“Assuming that program went well and we still ended up with those numbers in those circumstances they couldn’t be sued – they are no different to any other corporation or person out there.”
He said the job losses could be traced to the stage-three lockdown in July and stage four in August, which he claimed were due to the state government bungling the hotel quarantine program.
