{"id":388246,"date":"2026-03-17T11:38:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=388246"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:38:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:38:59","slug":"victoria-pays-125-million-to-businesses-hit-by-lockdown-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=388246","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Pays $125 Million to Businesses Hit by Lockdown Failures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Victorian government agreed to the payout in a class action lawsuit over 2020 hotel quarantine failures that triggered 768 deaths and the world&#8217;s longest lockdowns from March 2020 to October 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around 16,000 businesses registered, with roughly $85-90 million left for them after legal fees \u2014 averaging $5,000 to $7,500 each based on losses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Critics like former Premier Jeff Kennett blast it as dodging accountability for Daniel Andrews&#8217; leadership, while Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes calls it a smart move to avoid trial costs amid the state&#8217;s $170 billion debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For operators like CBD restaurateurs who closed for months, the money brings some closure, though hardships persist ahead of November&#8217;s election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around 16,000 businesses registered, with roughly $85-90 million left for them after legal fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":300247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,35,10792],"tags":[993],"class_list":["post-388246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news","category-covid","tag-melbourne"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388247,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388246\/revisions\/388247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/300247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}