Mornington Peninsula calls for release from metro Melbourne

Cr Hearn said businesses were unable to practise "COVID-safe systems" across the peninsula’s townships and beaches because of the lockdown.

He said the combination of recent rain, vacant homes and unmanaged grass also raised the risk of fires.

Asked this week if the Mornington Peninsula could be released from stage four faster than metropolitan Melbourne, Premier Daniel Andrews said there would be no changes to individual postcodes, suburbs or local governments.

He warned Melburnians they would be caught if they attempted to travel outside their five-kilometre limits to the beach.

But Rye resident Shara Bayly said on Friday she had seen an increase in tourists around local shops and more holiday homes becoming occupied since the beginning of the second lockdown.

"Within my street, there are only three permanent residents, yet on the weekends the other holiday homes are full, sometimes with up to six cars in the driveway,” she said.

Ms Bayly said the local areas were swarming with people as school holidays began.

With just two active cases on Friday on the Mornington Peninsula, Ms Bayly said locals were very concerned that people travelling from Melbourne could spread the virus.

On the other side of Port Phillip Bay, the township of Little River straddles two council areas – the City of Greater Geelong and the City of Wyndham – with the former in country Victoria and the latter in metropolitian Melbourne.

Jacqueline Toland, a local on the metropolitan Wyndham side of the actual Little River which splits the town, started a change.org petition on Wednesday evening - which by Friday had gathered almost 1000 signatures - calling on the state government to reclassify the whole postcode of Little River to join regional Victoria.

“How can you split a town in half like that?,” she said. “It makes no sense.”

The town of around 1300 people is 20 kilometres from Werribee - a major metropolitan COVID-19 hotspot - and 30 kilometres from the major regional city of Geelong.

It has just a few amenities - a post office, a pub, a general store and petrol station - and they're all on the metropolitan side of the river.

Although some locals have been told police will use discretion, residents from the Wyndham side of the river still technically face a $4957 fine for travelling to their local supermarket in Lara.

Peter Clarke, who has run the Little River General store for four and a half years, backed the calls to rezone the town.

“It’s really just common sense, I know the law wasn’t brought in to prejudice us but there was no consideration for a postcode that's divided by the two council areas,” he said.

Mr Clarke said most residents travelled to Lara for essential shopping rather than travelling 20 kilometres into built-up Werribee.

The rules now force those in Little River to head into one of the worst hotspots of the state.

While the LGA of Wyndham has 132 active cases of COVID-19, according to data released on Thursday, the postcode of 3221 - Little River - has no active cases of COVID-19.