"Businesses will only cautiously welcome the end of the latest Victorian lockdown given the ongoing possibility of future snap state closures and continuing quarantine failures," Tim Piper, the Victorian Head of the national employer association Ai Group said today.
The lockdown has been a huge cost to business and the community. By Ai Group's estimate, the shutdown cost the state economy more than $2.3 billion in lost or postponed household spending alone.
"It is clear that testing and tracing were the keys to resolving this potential outbreak, and not the lock-down which was disproportionate to the risk.
"We need to learn from this lockdown and adjust the responses accordingly. That means to immediately have another look at best practice quarantine around the country and not kick it down the road.
"Political leaders need to give health advisers a framework for future responses that takes a balance of risk approach. The framework should consider lockdowns as a last resort and the priority should be given to creating the best localised responses in the future," Mr Piper said.
Ai Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox added: "Victoria has repeatedly shown itself to be incapable of meeting the standards of the national hotel quarantine system. It is critically important to bring Australians home and to bring in the skilled workforce we need to keep our economy going, and Victoria's repeated failures have seriously eroded confidence at a national level in the state's ability to achieve this.
"Victoria's quarantine failures are putting the state at risk of being excluded from participation in the national hotel quarantine scheme. If hotel quarantine failings lead to more state or city closures then the cost of involvement may be greater than the risk," Mr Willox said.
