Separately, six travelers from Victoria who were attempting to enter Queensland with false papers were fined a total of 24,000 Australian dollars ($16,700), the Queensland police said this week. Victoria Police’s deputy commissioner, Rick Nugent, also said that more than 500 fines totaling more than 880,000 Australian dollars ($560,000) had been issued to people caught breaking stay-at home orders or gathering inappropriately since Melbourne’s six-week lockdown began on July 9.
Among the violators were two men caught playing the video game Pokémon Go outdoors, and others who were clients of sex workers and massage parlors. And 34 people were fined at a house party in Melbourne last week after the police were called there — twice — in response to noise complaints.
In the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong, a suspiciously large KFC takeout order last week led police to more than a dozen people hiding at a house party and 26,000 Australian dollars in fines. Another man refused a police order to leave a KFC restaurant.
On Wednesday, Mr. Nugent of the police department asked residents to abide by the new restrictions. “The time for discretion is over,” he said.
Australia has recorded at least 10,200 confirmed cases and 110 deaths, according to a Times database; Victoria reported 238 new cases on Wednesday.
Australia was initially praised for its response to the pandemic, but a second surge began creeping through Victoria last month and reaching parts of neighboring New South Wales, the country’s most populous state. New South Wales officials have said they would likely introduce new restrictions but stop short of imposing a strict lockdown.
Reporting was contributed by Julia Calderone, Ben Casselman, Manny Fernandez, Dana Goldstein, J. David Goodman, Jason Gutierrez, Maggie Haberman, Makiko Inoue, Isabella Kwai, Patricia Mazzei, Sarah Mervosh, David Montgomery, Claire Moses, Motoko Rich, Eliza Shapiro, Mitch Smith, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Eileen Sullivan, Jim Tankersley, Hisako Ueno, David Waldstein and Elizabeth Williamson.
