The hospitalisation rate in Melbourne from people sick with Covid19 is at an all-time high and rising. Tens of thousands of new cases are being officially recorded every day, locking in more suffering. The Victorian Ambulance Service has repeatedly gone into “Code Red”. Elective surgery has been cancelled. Health Care Workers are burning out. The supermarket shelfs are becoming bare because there are too many sick workers. 

In this context it is completely criminal for the Andrews Labor Government to allow a mass sporting event attended by hundreds of thousands of people. The Australian Tennis Open is scheduled to run from January 17th to January 30th. Such an event is guaranteed to be a further super spreader event of the highly transmissible Omicron Variant and the Delta variant of Covid19 which is still circulating in Melbourne. 

Whilst the media has focussed on whether one selfish international tennis player has the right to play in the event, it is deliberately overlooking the fact that the whole event is a selfish exercise being conducted to further the profits of Tennis Australia and its corporate sponsors. These are the real villains of the piece.

There must be a limit to this madness! Health must come before profits! It is not sane to run mass events in the middle of a mass infection wave of a deadly virus. 

Demand the Andrew’s Government shut down the Australian Tennis Open! 

Demand the cancellation of all mass events in Victoria and the reintroduction of social distancing policies that stop the state spiralling even deeper into crisis!

Full compensation for all workers and small business’s who are affected by these necessary health measures. Make the corporate bosses who demanded the reckless end of all public health measures fund this compensation.

Reality must be faced – vaccines were not enough. The pandemic is raging and now is not the time to run mass sporting events for profit! Demand the cancellation of the Australian Tennis Open and the “Let it rip” policy that justifies it!