Assessment 1 - Part B

What looks, smells and feels like discrimination but is not forbidden in Australia? Roving Victorians might know the answer. 

Most Australians would assume that they are protected from discrimination and vilification within their home country. 

But as some Victorians may find out, that protection doesn’t cover those outside of their home state during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In Australia, it has been dubbed illegal in both state and federal law to discriminate or vilify a person on the belief they may have an illness, no matter how justified that belief may be. 

Fair enough right? But, you might be surprised to know that’s not the case right now, thanks to COVID-19. 

Now that Victoria has been classed by the rest of the country as a COVID-19 hotspot, many Victorians caught out of their home state face unfair treatment, as other Australians prove unaware of their right to continue to live outside the state. 

As COVID-19 begins to permeate into areas of Sydney, New South Wales residents might be next to receive ‘legal’ discrimination.

Brooke Cooper