Premier Daniel Andrews continued the roll out of positive news announcements ahead of the state budget due Tuesday during yesterday's excursion into regional Victoria, his first for many months.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This time, it was the tourism and hospitality sector that were the identified beneficiaries of a package expected to boost intrastate travel, now that restrictions have been eased and travel between Melbourne and regional Victoria is once again allowed.
And regional Victorians can look forward to more positive announcements about restrictions being further, after clocking up 18 successive days of zero new cases of COVID-19.
This extraordinary achievement is accredit to the entire state and demonstrates the community's willingness to embrace hard work and to make a few small sacrifices in order to win back freedoms and opportunities we once took for granted.
Sadly, our neighbours in South Australia are staring down the barrel of an urgent and immediate lockdown in order to try and prevent an outbreak from spreading any further. The early signs are not encouraging, but hopefully, officials can very swiftly put into practice some of the learnings from Victoria's own crisis, a crisis that has hopefully now peaked and is receding.
With another five days to go until the government's much anticipated budget is handed down, we all look forward to more positive news and many welcome funding announcements, but we also want to know more about how the government plans to balance the books on what certainly shapes up as the most difficult and complex state budget in the state's history.
Revenue from gaming machines, property and even payroll taxes will be severely impacted this year, and for years to come, and Victorian households have next to no room in their family budgets to absorb any further financial pain.