Melbourne Tower Lockdowns: How Did It Come To This?
Tuesday night I helped de-escalate an altercation between police and a volunteer delivering food to people caught inside a Melbourne public housing estate. The African volunteer at one point cried out “I can’t breathe” while police held him down at the locked-down Flemington estate.
By identifying myself as a mental health worker, the officers on the scene did not respond to me with violence. Though that was helpful in the moment, a lack of heavy-handedness and empathy shouldn’t be a privilege afforded to me due to my occupation. This situation shouldn’t have occurred, but it did, leaving volunteers and Black and Brown onlookers exposed to unnecessary trauma.
Saturday’s order to detain 3,000 residents in nine public housing towers because of reported COVID-19 cases in the buildings came under the guise of “public health”, but with little consideration for the physical and mental wellbeing of those that have been essentially locked up. Residential areas in the same postcode are also in this coronavirus “hot spot,” but the non-public housing neighbours are allowed to leave their homes at any time for essential reasons.
The government of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has criminalised these people for the simple fact that they live in public housing.
The message to residents of the towers was “the quicker you get tested, the quicker we will release you”.
On the ground, however, police grossly outnumber volunteers, medical professionals and departmental workers. But these officers represent the largest threat to our mental health and wellbeing.
Many residents had been refugees or asylum seekers, and the use of detainment can retraumatise them, shaking their wellbeing and sense of safety. The government has failed to consider the trauma that this detainment causes and has failed to ensure the cultural safety and mental health of these residents.
Flemington and North Melbourne have a history of racial profiling and over-policing. We are...
