Cumberland Council’s translated coronavirus message delayed: MP Julia Finn
A western Sydney MP has called out a mayor for agreeing to spend $68,000 on material translating COVID-19 messages when he could have done it for free much sooner.
Parramatta
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Granville state Labor MP Julia Finn has called out Cumberland Council for spending $68,000 on translating COVID-19 messages to its non-English speaking community when it could have been carried out for free in August if the mayor supported it.
Last week, Cumberland Mayor Steve Christou revealed the council would letterbox drop households in the culturally diverse community and encourage them to get tested for the coronavirus in eight languages — Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, simplified Chinese, Greek, Vietnamese, Tamil and Korean — following the Berala outbreak.
The material includes details about testing clinics and mask wearing.
But Ms Finn slammed Cr Christou for failing to take action and address the problem sooner.
At an August 19 council meeting, Labor councillors George Campbell and Suman Saha moved to display posters and corflutes in busy spots in the languages appropriate to that community to warn non-English-speaking residents how to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
The posters could be copied and downloaded from the NSW Health website for free.
Councillors Campbell, Saha, Glenn Elmore, Ola Hamed, Kun Huang, Lisa Lake supported the idea.
But councillors Christou, Ned Attie, Greg Cummings, Paul Garrard, Joe Rahme, Eddy Sarkis, Michael Zaiter and Tom Zreika dumped it and it was lost by the mayor on a casting vote.
This week, a letter from the mayor has been dispersed across the council, which has 240,000 residents — 75 per cent which speak a language other than English.
“I have no concern with that but mainly it could have been avoided,’’ Ms Finn said.
“Instead of playing politics with COVID, he could have agreed to the proposal to put up the posters in multiple languages six months ago.
“We had big outbreaks and clusters around the LGA. They had plenty of opportunity to translate the messages.’’
The critcism follows Ms Finn yesterday lashing out at the mayor for calling leaders who scrapped Australia Day celebrations “bedwetters”.
Cr Campbell said Cr Christou failed to take the pandemic seriously.
“I don’t think that he is convinced that COVID is a real problem …,’’ he said, adding that it would have been free and easy to copy NSW Health material from its website.
But the mayor defended his vote in August because he said councillors were trying to cover old ground.
“When it comes to communicating with residents about the potential risk, council and NSW Health has been doing this since the pandemic started,’’ he said.
“Council and NSW Health have been making information available to residents (both English and non-English speaking), consistently and via various means of communication. We’re all also working closely with community leaders to assist in reaching residents to help them understand the importance of getting tested and wearing a mask.’’
Cr Christou also defended the funds spent on the letterbox distribution.
“You cannot put a price tag on the health and wellbeing of our local community,’’ he said.
It is not the first time 73-year-old Cr Campbell has clashed with the mayor over the pandemic.
The mayor accused Cr Campbell of not attending any council meetings or workshops in person since March despite his presence on Zoom and “picking and choosing when he plays the COVID card’’.
“He’s happy to go to the Christmas carols. George Campbell has been sighted picking and choosing his recreational events.’’
Cr Campbell has elected to attend meeting online because he did not want to risk inhaling potentially infectious aerosols at the Merrylands chambers.
He hit back at his attendance at the Christmas carols at the Auburn Botanical Gardens.
“The event he’s referring to was an outdoor event; I was not stuck in a room with recirculated air,’’ he said.
“His concern about COVID spreading is very inconsistent with the idea that I — and other people for that matter — should be prepared to take risks.’’
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