Gladys Berejiklian faces instability within as a Covid storm brews outside
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, emerged from her crisis briefing at the Department of Health on Friday looking more stressed – with good reason.
All the signs are that NSW is losing control of this outbreak of the Delta strain of Covid-19, despite the increasingly stringent lockdown rules.
“To 8pm last night there were 44 cases of community transmission. Regrettably, 29 of those were either partially or fully exposed to the community and that is the number that is really concerning us,” Berejiklian said on Friday.
“It tells us that both the case numbers and unfortunately the number of people who may be exposed or have been exposed in the community is going to go up.”
The number that should put fear into everyone is the 14,000 people who are under 14-day isolation orders as close contacts. That’s doubled in 24 hours and is an indicator of how quickly the pool of exposed people can grow.
The big unknown is how many have been exposed and not identified, given the public’s somewhat lax approach to compliance with stay-at-home rules to date.
“It’s a concerning time for all of us. This is not the time for complacency. Not the time to cut corners. Compliance is so important,” Berejiklian said, as she conceded that the NSW lockdown, now in its second week, is likely to continue beyond next week.
Not only is Berejiklian battling the most serious outbreak of Covid that NSW has experienced and the added threat of the Delta variant, she is dealing with a new bout of destabilisation from within her own ranks.
The sniping and negative commentary is coming from disgruntled cabinet colleagues who seem intent on seizing on any setback to pour petrol on the fire.
Those close to Berejiklian believe her own deputy, the Nationals leader, John Barilaro, is among those within cabinet who are unhelpfully briefing that a plan B is needed.
Barilaro and Berejiklain’s relationship reached a nadir last year over the state’s koala protections, taking the Coalition to the brink of collapse.
Berejiklian told Barilaro if he continued with his threat to sit on the cross benches, he and his ministers could stay there. Barilaro took mental health leave but in the following months has won some significant concessions on the protections.
On Thursday, Barilaro appeared on Seven’s Sunrise program to suggest that some sort of “suppression strategy” involving “managing people in the community” could be considered if the virus cannot be eliminated by the end of next week.
“We are giving it our best shot to stop all community transmission but if that doesn’t work, if we can’t get to zero [cases], we will have to look at what plan B looks like,” he said.
Others, including the health minister, Brad Hazzard, have suggested we may just have to live with the virus, though he appears to have walked back from that position in recent days.
Berejiklian’s treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, also opposed extending the lockdown, saying he is simply advocating for the good of the economy.
On Friday the premier delivered a slapdown to her critics, warning that with vaccinations rates around 9%, the state would see mass hospitalisations and deaths if restrictions were relaxed.
“My job is to speak to the facts and to speak to what NSW has to do,” she said.
“I urge everybody to get out of your head, please acknowledge, we cannot live with this when the vaccination rate is only 9%. No one in my position would subject thousands and thousands of people to hospitalisation or death.
“I should also say equally, the economic impact will be devastating because if you think you can live with this and it goes wild in the community, nobody will be going to a restaurant or a bar when there are thousands and thousands of cases, thousands of deaths, no one will want to leave their home.”
The brutal truth is that thanks to Australia’s slow vaccine rollout – the responsibility of the Morrison government – NSW is now hostage to lockdowns until the time we reach a substantial level of vaccination.
That has left Berejiklian with few choices other than increasingly strict lockdown rules.
Most of these are directed at individuals: don’t have friends and relatives over, don’t go browsing in the shops, limit outings, and observe good hygiene and social distancing.
On Friday, Berejiklian limited funerals to 10 people. Policing has been stepped up in the hotspot of southwest Sydney.
But incongruously, NSW is continuing to avoid defining what constitutes an essential business.
When Covid cases surged in Victoria, the state government defined essential providers and essential workers, which gave all workers and employers a clear guide as to whether they should be going to work.
NSW has left it up to businesses. The result is that major retail outlets have remained open in NSW in contrast to Victoria, which allowed retailers other than food stores to remain open only for click-and-collect.
The consequences of this approach are now becoming clear. If businesses remain open, workers, particularly casuals, feel obliged to turn up. They take public transport and at their workplaces can interact with hundreds of people.
On Friday’s list of new exposure sites was Ikea’s massive store at Tempe. It was listed for 6 July from 10am to 9pm – a strong indication the infected person was an employee.
Other venues with exposure windows of several hours include Blueys Swim School at Bankstown, the Bistro at the Novotel at Manly, Billy’s Cars at Revesby, the Service NSW office at Botany, and several shopping malls and supermarkets.
Some of these might be essential businesses, but if the government really wants to limit exposure, it should make it crystal clear what should and shouldn’t be open.
It also requires the federal government to step up. Emergency payments announced so far will go only part of the way.
A much more comprehensive scheme – perhaps jobkeeper 2 or a scheme that channels money to employees directly – will be required if NSW is forced into a prolonged lockdown.
The equation is pretty simple: NSW, a $500bn economy, represents around a third of the the Australian economy. A prolonged shutdown will be costly.
But without a vaccination rate approaching 80% of the adult population, the idea of letting Covid rip will see Australia experience outbreaks similar to those of India or the UK last year.