Scott Morrison has supported locking down Sydney until new local Covid cases are eliminated amid reports some state cabinet ministers want to let the virus spread.
The shut down is due to end on July 16 but Premier Gladys Berejiklian has left the door open for another extension to snuff out the highly infectious Delta strain.
‘We are still aiming for that (end) date, don’t get me wrong, but also know that is dependent on all of us doing the right thing,’ she said on Thursday.
Asked if he backed extending lockdown to get cases down to zero, Mr Morrison said: ‘If that’s what’s needed in this suppression phase and if that’s what state government does, then of course.’
A man is arrested for failing to abide by stay at home orders in Fairfield in south-western Sydney
Police patrol a shopping centre in Fairfield. There is an increased police presence in south-west Sydney to enforce lockdown
The main shopping centre in Fairfield was deserted on Friday morning as lockdown continued
The virus is spreading south western Sydney and police have stepped up patrols in the area. Picture: Chapel Road in Bankstown
‘We are still in the suppression phase. We were always going to still be in the suppression phase now,’ he told the Today show on Friday morning.
On Thursday Sydney recorded 38 new Covid cases with more than half in three local government areas of ethnically diverse south-west Sydney.
Police have stepped up patrols in the area after Ms Berejiklian said residents – most of whom do not speak English at home – were not obeying the lockdown rules.
Despite a plea for residents to get tested for Covid-19, testing centres in the area were empty on Friday morning.
Last night the Sydney Morning Herald reported that state cabinet was divided over whether to continue the lockdown or lift it and let the virus spread.
Police are patrolling in the shopping district in the southwestern suburb of Fairfield
Pictured: Shoppers in Bankstown
Three senior ministers told the publication the state was at a ‘fork in the road’ and the next three days ‘would be critical.’
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard on Wednesday said if lockdown fails then the state must ‘accept that the virus has a life which will continue in the community’.
He backtracked on Thursday, saying opening up depends on vaccination rates – but Deputy Premier John Barilaro said Mr Hazzard meant what he said.
‘The minister has been involved in this for 18 or 19 months, dealing with Covid-19, and he does not mince his words,’ Mr Barilaro told Sunrise.
‘He has said that, it is clear that in a week’s time, we still may have community transmission and we may have to attack this differently, remembering that the Delta strain is a very different from the first strain, there is no rule book to work through. We make the best decisions on advice.’
The Prime Minster said he is not aware of any state ministers who want to abandon lockdown and let the virus rip through the community.
‘At the discussions I’ve had with NSW cabinet ministers, that hasn’t been relayed to me. So I don’t know what these reports relate to,’ he said.
Mr Morrison said federal health experts are advising him that it is too dangerous to live with the Delta strain – which is twice as infectious as the original Wuhan strain – and lockdown is necessary.
‘That is the public health advice I’m receiving. I’m quite certain that’s the public health advice that [Gladys Berejiklian] is receiving.
After just three weeks since the first case, there are currently 40 covid-19 cases in hospital, with 11 people in intensive care, three of whom require ventilation.
Mr Morrison revealed he expects the state to continue its suppression strategy, saying: ‘I believe that’s what will happen in NSW.’
The Australian reported on Wednesday that NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottett opposed lockdown because of the damage it does to the economy.
Mr Perrottet refused to confirm that on Thursday, telling radio 2GB: ‘My job is to advocate for businesses and keeping people in jobs and that’s what I do.
‘What I don’t do is speak about the individual positions ministers take in relation to those discussions.
‘The virus… is not going away. We have to learn to live alongside it.’
Senior NSW sources told the AFR that Mr Barilaro exaggerated Mr Perrottet’s position when he leaked the story to The Australian.
‘Dom is the treasurer. He should be trying to support the economy but for it to be leaked out of context shows how dangerous ”Barra” is,’ a source said.
Mr Morrison said Mr Perrottet should ‘come into line with the premier.’
He said the federal government was working on what extra financial support it could deliver to New South Wales residents if lockdown goes into a fourth week.
It comes after the federal government struck a deal with Pfizer to bring millions of doses of Covid vaccine into the country earlier than planned to speed up the rollout.
Australia received 1.7 million Pfizer doses in June and it is expected to receive 2.8 million in July, and more than 4.5 million in August.
Previously only 3million doses were expected in August.
NSW recorded 38 cases on Thursday, the state’s highest number of daily infections since the first wave of the pandemic last year (pictured, shoppers in Sydney’s Chatswood on Thursday)
Police patrols were ramped up in Sydney’s south-west on Friday morning to ‘ensure compliance’ with lockdown restrictions (patrol pictured in Fairfield)
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister told Daily Mail Australia: ‘From 19 July, Australia’s Pfizer supply now plans to increase to approximately 1 million doses per week.
‘This is compared to an average of 300,000 to 350,000 per week in May and June.
‘Due to the nature of pandemic vaccine supply these numbers are subject to change and will be confirmed closer to the delivery date.’
On Thursday NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant warned lockdown could be extended yet again after the outbreak that began in the city’s eastern suburbs last month spread to the south-west, where the number of unlinked cases has soared.
NSW recorded 38 cases on Thursday, the state’s highest number of daily infections since the first wave of the pandemic last year.
Police patrols were ramped up in Sydney’s south-west on Friday morning to ‘ensure compliance’ with lockdown restrictions, with shoppers warned they may be stopped and questioned over whether what they’re buying is ‘essential’.
Police will ramp up their patrols of Sydney’s south-west from Friday, with 100 extra officers stationed in the suburbs (pictured, police patrolling Sydney on Thursday)
The singling out of Liverpool, Fairfield and Canterbury-Bankstown residents and restricting of their movements has outraged community leaders, who have questioned why their wealthy eastern suburbs counterparts haven’t endured the same police enforcements.
NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant is concerned about the surge in unlinked cases and described case numbers as ‘stubborn’, saying infections had already ‘broken containment lines’ in the south-west.
‘We are finding more unlinked cases now, where as early on it was very linked,’ she told the Daily Telegraph.
Dr Chant said the drive towards zero community transmission will continue as the vaccine rollout finally begins to ramp up, signalling an extension of lockdown, but that attitudes towards the spread could change when enough people were vaccinated.
‘It is hard with (the current) level of vaccine coverage not to see a significant escalation in cases,’ she said.
‘I’m also very conscious that vaccine will be available in the near future in sufficient quantities to protect us and (we can then) have a different conversation about community transmission at that time.’
Dr Chant and other officials spent Thursday night amending the public health order to make it illegal for more than one person to visit another household to provide ‘care or assistance’.
Police patrols will be ramped up in Sydney’s Covid-riddled south-west from Friday morning to ‘ensure compliance’ with lockdown restrictions
More than half of Thursday’s new 38 cases were from Sydney’s south-west.
The Liverpool, Fairfield and Canterbury-Bankstown local government areas take in 110 suburbs, and is home to more than 820,000 residents and represents a 519 square kilometre swathe of the city.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian attributed the spike in cases in the region to non-compliance in the community and illegal household interactions, prompting a police crackdown on residents leaving their homes.
But Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone and Canterbury-Bankstown counterpart Khal Asfour have jumped to defend their residents and pointed the blame at hotel quarantine leaks and the bungled vaccine roll-out for the spike in cases.
‘Don’t put this on south-west Sydney, I’m not going to cop this,’ Mr Carbone told Nine News on Thursday.
‘It’s not our fault the virus is here. It’s the fact that it keeps on leaking from hotel quarantine, and that’s where people are frustrated.’
He later told Sky News: ‘I just think we’ve got to work out a way to stop the virus coming in from hotel quarantine, it’s a controlled area, that’s where everyone’s frustrated.
‘Fairfield’s a perfect example, an area that never had the virus, but the virus spreads.
‘You need to contain it from its entry point, they need to put as much resources as possible to stop the virus coming in to play from the beginning.
‘We had a nurse come from the inner-west and eastern suburbs come to Fairfield Hospital and contaminate one of our wards.
‘We also had the West Hoxton cluster which came from the inner-city. That wasn’t locked down or controlled and that spread across south-west Sydney.’
There are grave concerns for the rise of the number of unlinked cases in Sydney’s south-west (pictured, a butcher’s shop in Bankstown)
NSW Premier Gladys Berejikian (pictured) has come under fire for singling out Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown residents
But Mr Carbone’s deputy Paul Azzo believes the crackdown will be a small price to pay if it can help slow down the spread of the virus.
‘The fact that the proposed response was not adopted for earlier outbreaks in eastern Sydney and the northern beaches does not faze me,’ Mr Azzo said.
‘I see the proposed police response as a positive for South Western Sydney and I congratulate the premier for taking a special interest in the residents of Fairfield.’
Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour claims he wasn’t consulted about the increased police patrols which he says have cause widespread disgruntlement and disillusionment in the community.
‘The government and Premier came out targeting our communities when I don’t think there was no need to,’ he told ABC’s RN Drive.
‘This is a Sydney wide problem, this isn’t a south-west Sydney problem.
‘The virus didn’t emanate here, it started in the eastern suburbs.’
He has no problems with police fining people not wearing mask and leaving their homes for non-essential reasons.
Dr Kerry Chant (pictured) described NSW case numbers as ‘stubborn’ and said community transmission must be stamped out before millions can go back to normal
Eastern suburbs residents flocked to Bondi last weekend to soak up the winter sun. Their counterparts in the city’s south-west won’t enjoy the same freedoms this weekend
But he questioned why 100 additional officers have been deployed to the region when they weren’t brought in to Bondi when the outbreak began, where Sydneysiders have flocked to beaches and parks to soak up the winter sunshine.
‘I have to question and wonder why why this didn’t happen in Bondi when the outbreak started a few weeks ago,’ Mr Asfour said.
He called on the NSW government to get its messaging to the community right.
‘We shouldn’t be blamed for this. I think the vaccine rollout and hotel quarantine are the reasons why this variant has spread across Sydney,’ he told The Project.
‘We’ve had this pandemic on our shores for 18 months. I think the messaging is right, and they’ve got the material.
‘I think they’ve just had a bit of a problem in getting it out there to the right people.
‘Community leaders are locked down at home. Our mosques, our churches, our places of worship are locked down.’
‘We’re a very faith-based community out here and it’s very hard for people to hear these messages from their faith-based leaders and I think it’s important that when that’s occurring that the government needs to double down on their efforts and make sure that people are getting the right message.’
Residents out and about in Sydney’s south-west will be grilled by police as to why they’re leaving their homes (pictured, Bankstown locals stocking up on essentials)
Racial justice organisation Democracy in Colour went one step further, describing the police operation as ‘thinly veiled racism’ and called for it to be reversed.
‘This isn’t a public health response, it’s explicitly targeting people of colour and working class communities in the western suburbs,’ national director Neha Madhok said.
‘Inner city suburbs and the Northern Beaches have had significant cases but they have not been harshly policed like this.’
Ms Berejiklian has defended her comments singling out the Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool regions.
‘We are here to make sure people know what the risk is … it is really important for me to say it like it is,’ she said on Thursday.
‘Please note that when I say it like it is I don’t mean to cause offence, I just need to get the information out.
‘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, as safely as possible and as intact as possible and that is why it is my responsibility to be direct.
‘If we don’t say it like it is, people won’t think about their own actions and behaviours and I think the people of this state would expect me to be honest and direct as specially at a time like this.’
The south-west regional police commander Assistant Commissioner Tony Cooke, said the police operation will ensure residents ‘do the right thing’.
‘They need a reasonable excuse to be out there, and people need to ask themselves the question ‘do I need to do it?’ and quite often, the answer can be no,’ he said.
More than 100 officers have been deployed in Sydney’s south-west to ‘ensure compliance’ with lockdown restrictions (pictured, police in the city on Thursday)
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