Western Sydney residents feel they are being ‘scapegoated’ as police pledge Covid crackdown
Western Sydney residents say they are being “scapegoated” as New South Wales police announced a major compliance crackdown, including mounted officers, and health authorities struggled to contain the city’s growing Covid-19 outbreak.
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, on Thursday apologised for singling out three council areas in Sydney’s west for apparent breaches of health orders as locals claimed they were being unfairly “branded as the reason the lockdown was extended”.
NSW’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, has indicated tougher restrictions could be considered for the three council areas.
Police on Thursday announced a “crackdown” on lockdown rules in Sydney’s south-west, with more than 100 extra officers to be deployed to patrol the area from Friday, including mounted police.
The Cumberland City councillor Kun Huang argued the police operation was harsher on the western suburbs than it had been in more affluent parts of Sydney.
“How come one rule applies for the northern suburbs and the eastern suburbs, and another rule applies to western Sydney?” he said.
But a NSW police spokesperson said all suburbs were being treated equally.
“Deputy commissioner Mal Lanyon made it very clear during the press conference that this is no different to previous operations where there were high numbers of cases,” they said.
“The mounted unit have indeed been deployed to Bondi beach and the Northern Beaches during the pandemic.” On Wednesday, the premier said people in the Fairfield, CanterburyBankstown and Liverpool local government areas needed to better heed public health orders and limit their movement.
“Can I say to the communities in those areas, many have a similar background to me, please don’t mingle with family,” Berejiklian said. “Can I say to everybody don’t mingle with family, don’t think it is OK to visit your cousins or have sleepovers.”
Locals told Guardian Australia they felt as if they’d been made “scapegoats” after the outbreak began in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Bashar Krayem, a business owner, said Berejiklian’s comments were “unbelievable” and his community was doing its part to help fight the growing outbreak.
“Western Sydney has been doing the right thing and has always been doing the right thing in terms of the pandemic,” he said.
“We’re struggling enough, and now we’re being put at the forefront of this outbreak, being made the scapegoats, where, realistically, it was the eastern suburbs that started all this.”
Krayem, a co-owner at the Culinary Group, which runs a culinary school, cafe and bakery, said residents in southwest Sydney should be “applauded” for doing the right thing.
“It feels like these areas are being branded as the reason for the extension of the lockdown. Which is definitely unfair.”
The three LGAs are some of the most diverse regions in Sydney, with the 2016 census suggesting 65.9% of residents in Canterbury-Bankstown and over 75% of people in Fairfield spoke a language other than English at home. Just over 78% of Fairfield residents and 65.7% of people from Canterbury-Bankstown had both parents born overseas.
Asma Fehmi, a Bankstown resident, said she had not witnessed anyone breaking the public health orders in her area and was confused when she heard them singled out.
“I do feel like those three LGAs are being targeted,” she said. “I saw the police flexing about fining people in Bankstown at the press conference, but when I’m on social media and see people in other suburbs, where people are picnicking, going out, people sitting together, I do see some discrimination toward these LGAs.
“Making people who live in these LGAs feel guilty about the way they’ve been handling the outbreak isn’t easy on anyone. I don’t think it’s fair.
“If you’re going to send a message, it
should be a message to ensure that everyone is following the orders, no matter where they are from in Sydney.”
On Thursday Berejiklian apologised for “causing offence” with her comments, and said it had not been intentional. But the premier said she did not want to “beat around the bush”.
“When I say it like it is I don’t mean to cause offence. I just need to get the information out,” she told reporters.
“Our words come out of care and compassion. Our words come out of wanting us all to come out of this as quickly as possible.”
Speaking before Thursday’s police announcement, the state Labor MP for Lakemba, Jihad Dib, told Guardian Australia his local community felt they were being treated differently.
“They feel like they were treated unfairly, that outbreaks in their suburbs were being highlighted, whereas other suburbs were congratulated for the work they were doing,” he said.
“People have their masks on, have cut down on house visits, I’m not seeing big groups of people congregate.
They’re doing it as best they can. Life is not normal, you can see that. The vast majority are following the rules.
“The [premier’s] language wasn’t couched in the positive manner it could have been.
I think she was trying to encourage people, but I think the messaging came out wrong. ”
Chant has previously said the government had not “communicated effectively” the dangers of the outbreak to all communities.
In a statement, NSW Health said it had been working with multicultural groups throughout the pandemic and had provided information in 57 languages.
But Huang said that work had not been enough.
He has been calling on NSW Health to improve their messaging to diverse communities since the outbreak in Berala in January. So far, he’s had to resort to forming groups on social media and informing the community himself.
“I don’t think they have improved much since the Berala cluster. At the moment, most of the information is still in English,” Huang said.
“Even my parents wouldn’t be able to get the latest information unless I called them. And they’re not uneducated, that’s just not the way they get their information.
“They won’t go to the health website every day to get the latest update. They won’t watch press conferences every day.”
Huang said it was disappointing the government had not worked out a better communication strategy – and this was putting vulnerable people at risk.