Retreat from scrutiny ill-advised

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been too hasty in her bid to withdraw from public scrutiny after announcing plans to open her state from Covid-19 restrictions. We have been full of praise for the leadership shown by Ms Berejiklian in changing the narrative of the pandemic from case numbers to vaccination rates and hospitalisations. And we applaud the leadership shown in balancing health advice against broader social imperatives. But promising to lift wartime-like impositions on citizens is not the same thing as removing them. Until curfews are lifted, travel restrictions eased, army personnel are off the streets and the community is comfortable that the health system is able to cope, Ms Berejiklian must continue to show leadership and make herself available every day to explain what is being done to return conditions in her state to as close to normal as possible.

State leaders need to be accountable for every single day that citizens are being asked to forgo what in any other times would be considered basic rights. This includes restrictions on how far they can travel from home, how many people they can meet, how they can shop and where they can spend their time. More information is needed about how discriminatory rules will be imposed for vaccinated and non-vaccinated citizens. The public has a right to know what measures are in place to safeguard civil liberties and to prevent bureaucratic overreach. First and foremost, politicians are there to serve their citizens, not the state.

Throughout the outbreak of the Delta variant of the Covid virus, Ms Berejiklian has held daily press conferences to explain the government’s response. The Premier announced on Friday that this would cease on Sunday. She said NSW Health instead would provide daily health updates online, with NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard holding intermittent press conferences as required.

As Yoni Bashan wrote on Friday, with 46 per cent of the state fully immunised, and with a looming crisis expected to unfold across the health system, Ms Berejiklian’s decision to withdraw from daily public scrutiny has all the appearances of a good idea that has been poorly timed and ill thought out. With case numbers still rising, Bashan writes, arguably there has never been a more appropriate time for Ms Berejiklian to provide a guiding hand as leader, but also to present clear-eyed facts to the public and to confront important questions. We accept that daily press conferences can be an unpleasant experience for a premier under pressure, but that is part of the job. Far from being a rollcall of the macabre, daily briefings should be used for honest dialogue and to reinforce the message that recovery is in sight.

Citizens have shown themselves prepared to accept extraordinary measures in extraordinary times, but the bargain with leaders is if they want to take away liberties they must be prepared to be transparent and accountable. With some parts of the nation’s most populous city still under curfew between the hours of 9pm and 5am for at least another five weeks, now is not the time for the NSW Premier to hand responsibility over to unelected officials or her political underlings.