Neil Mitchell says the state government has been “working without compassion” during lockdown, and Victorians are suffering.

The 3AW Mornings host says Victorians seeking help are getting “duck-shoved or ignored or falling through the cracks”.

“The government is brutalising its own citizens by allowing a clumsy, inefficient, cruel system to operate through this crisis,” he said.

“This isn’t about lockdown … it’s about how it’s being managed.”

Neil Mitchell says the disaster payment announced weeks ago is still not in place, kids are being caught in a one-size-fits-all approach and people seeking exemptions to enter Victoria are being treated “brutally”.

In one instance, Zoe, a mother of two young children who is out of work and cannot afford to stay in NSW, and wants to return to her parents’ farm with her children, has been waiting more than 19 days for a response to her request to enter Victoria on compassionate grounds.

After speaking to Neil Mitchell on Monday, Zoe finally received a call from health officials, telling her that her COVID test has now expired, and her seven-month-old and two-year-old also need to be tested before her border exemption on compassionate grounds can be considered.

In another case, a pair of Wodonga pensioners are stranded over the NSW border because they stopped and slept in their motorhome while driving more than 1000 kilometres home from Queensland.

“This is a massive failure by government … not the policy or the lockdown, the way they’re running it,” Neil Mitchell said.

“Lockdowns are necessary but this government is running an incompetent support system. It has abandoned compassion.”

Press PLAY below to hear why Neil Mitchell thinks the state government is operating a ‘brutal, cruel’ system