Premier criticised for delayed lockdown decision as states turn on NSW

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is copping criticism for her delayed decision to lock down Sydney amid the latest covid outbreak.

Australians are turning their backs on NSW as the state battles a fresh covid outbreak, with the Premier copping harsh criticism for her decision not to lock down sooner.

With millions of people in Greater Sydney plunged into a two-week lockdown and the Northern Territory and Queensland scrambling to contain growing covid numbers, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is facing backlash over her delayed decision to impose stay-at-home orders.

The Perth and Peel regions remain on high alert on Monday after a woman returned to Western Australia from a Sydney hotspot and tested positive to the highly-infectious Delta variant. The virus has since spread to a 32-year-old woman who attended a gym in Joondalup.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been criticised over her delayed decision to impose a lockdown on Greater Sydney amid the latest covid outbreak. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

While Perth-Peel has avoided a lockdown for now, interstate media has not held back from directing blame at the NSW Premier, with the front page of the The West Australian newspaper on Monday asking, ‘Well … are you Gladys now? Questions over why NSW took so long to lock down’.

In an editorial published in the paper, editor-in-chief of West Australian Newspapers Anthony De Ceglie wrote: “We all watched the highly contagious Delta variant spread through Sydney and we wondered if NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s initial refusal to go into lockdown meant the virus would leak out of the Harbour City and into other states. And yesterday, we got the answer”.

“It is the Delta strain of the virus that is causing the latest drama across the globe, and the seriousness of this mutation of Covid-19 was underestimated by the NSW Premier,” he wrote.

Front page of The West Australian on Monday, June 28. Picture: Supplied

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

“Ms Berejiklian insists she does ‘not regret a single decision’ taken during NSW’s latest outbreak.

“Ask those now in lockdown and the other states affected by her decision if they regret her approach.”

During a press conference on Sunday, WA Premier Mark McGowan was careful in his response to a question over whether the Perth situation could have been avoided if Sydney was locked down sooner.

“I don’t want to get into pointing the finger. I don’t want to get into a blame game with other states, but I think the lesson of all this is, that we need to act quickly and we need to be very, very serious when we deal with covid,” he said.

“Delay is a problem and so all I’d say is the lesson out of this is – act quickly, act with haste, take steps quickly and effectively to crush the virus.”

The stern commentary from the west coast comes as a NSW Labor MP made a subtle dig at Ms Berejiklian’s delayed lockdown approach.

“Smarter people than me have said that she should’ve gone into a short lockdown earlier – we’ll wait and see whether those views are vindicated,” Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon told Sunrise.

A pedestrian moves along an almost empty George Street in the Sydney CBD on June 28, during stay-at-home orders. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

“But it’s a tough time for everyone and what this underscores of course is that fact that we’re going to continue to have these lockdowns (while) we don’t have broadscale vaccinations.”

At the weekend, Ms Berejiklian hit back at claims her initial anti-lockdown stance was based on political reasons rather than the best health advice.

“I do not regret a single decision we have taken because it has been based on health advice,” she told reporters.

“When you are making a major decision to lock down millions and millions of people, you have to make sure it is based on health advice and not because you want to have zero cases every day.”

However, Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce was more supportive of Ms Berejiklian’s approach.

“There’s obviously two schools of thought. They had the northern beaches outbreak and they controlled that. This is another one, I have to say, a little bit more serious,” Mr Joyce told Sunrise.

“ … But we have to be very mindful that shops go broke if you just shut the whole place down one after the other and we’re seeing that in Victoria. So let’s hope we manage this … like they did the northern beaches outbreak.”