Victoria’s state government has won an extension of its powers to declare the COVID-19 pandemic an ongoing state of emergency.

A marathon debate on the legislation’s technical details took place overnight with the vote finally taking place before 2am on Wednesday with 20 MPs in favour and 19 against a six-month extension of the government’s powers.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos was heckled throughout her speech as she told Victoria’s Parliament that those who voted against the bill would essentially be voting for a “third wave”.

“This is the most important bill in the 21 years I have been in the Victorian Parliament. We have an ongoing public health emergency,” she said, but she denied suggestions that the bill would give additional powers to the Chief Health Officer or the government.

“The case numbers are trending down but we know there is still some way to go.

“This is about extending the time to exercise the current powers under the Health and Wellbeing Act.

“This pandemic will not be finished in two weeks’ time, it won’t in fact be finished in six months, this will be going into 2021 because we know in all likelihood there will be no vaccine within that six-month period.”

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https://twitter.com/JennyMikakos/status/1300829485357359104

Critics of the extension questioned Ms Mikakos what would happen if a vaccine never became available.

Greens leader Samantha Ratnam cast her vote in the upper house in favour of the government’s bill giving Labor the numbers it needed to pass through the legislation along with the support of two other crossbenchers. Ms Ratnam’s return from maternity leave was unexpected.

The one-off extension for six months was a deal brokered by Fiona Patten MP and is a watered-down version of the permanent legislative change the government had originally sought.

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The powers allow the government to enforce restrictions recommended by Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton to ensure that the new case numbers keep dropping.

In the past, Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews had described the extension of these powers as an “insurance policy”.

Stage four lockdown was due to end in Victoria on 13 September.