Two months to the day after imposing a limited lockdown on Sydney to ensure a COVID-19 outbreak didn’t persist “for weeks”, Gladys Berejiklian lost patience with the suburbs that have refused to bow to her wishes.

The 9pm-to-5am curfew on 12 council areas in south-western and western Sydney imposed by the NSW Premier on Friday is a born-of-desperation tactic to stop the movement of, in the words of Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, young men who are “very difficult to manage” from the suburbs responsible for 85 per cent of the state’s cases.