During this virus outbreak many decisions have been made were wrong, but instead of saying upfront at an early stage "I got it wrong" and reverse the decision, they have ploughed along, frustrating the majority.

It is over six months now since governments became aware of the potential threat and with our seven premiers acting like prime ministers we are still rudderless with no future plan which will benefit Australia. Some Asian countries, which we see as developing, seem to have things under control and have resumed a normal life with some restrictions.

The majority of the population who are obeying the rules are sick of the minority blatantly breaking the rules, who only seem to get a slap on the wrist. The Black Lives Matter march, which has dubious objectives, is a prime example.

Australia will never be the same again, so a new direction which will require major projects investment and relocation of the workforce. Look back in history as in the 1950-60s when many rural children as young as 14 where forced to relocate to find employment.

I totally agree with Doug Seacombe (The Border Mail letters) when he says he is not surprised by the outbreaks in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne - we can now add the meatworks in Colac. I think there is more to the issue than just people failing to comply.

Firstly, I think it is about the regulations and training. The majority of outbreaks are in Victorian nursing homes. About a week ago around 490 Victorian COVID-19 cases were found in private Victorian nursing homes controlled by the federal government and only eight to 10 COVID-19 cases in Victorian state government run homes where the rules are much stricter.

The Federal Aged Care Act is quite loose and simply states the provider has "to maintain an adequate number of appropriately skilled staff to ensure that the care needs of care recipients are met". This is meaningless because neither "appropriately skilled" nor "adequate" are defined and cannot be enforced. This contrasts with the Victorian Safe Patient Care Act 2015, which states aged care beds must be staffed by one nurse for every seven residents with slight variations for afternoon and evening shifts.

Secondly, it is about work conditions. Many workers in both sectors are working under conditions of "flexibility" created by the Coalition government. Low paid, part time, casual and insecure contracts.

As a consequence some workers hold more than one job in order to survive. If such a worker gets sick, they have no sick leave, no holiday pay to fall back on and could be sacked for failing to turn up.

They must continue to feed their family so off to work they will go spreading the virus to family friends and their work places either unbeknownst to them as they have no symptoms or because the symptoms are minor and they need to work.

Dan Andrews has offered to pay $1500 to these workers (just as of this week) so they can afford to stay at home, fixing a hole left by the Coalitions workplace policies. The Coalition, playing catch up, has now asked Fair Work Australia to look at pandemic leave as part of all awards.