Coronavirus: BLM ‘playing Russian roulette with our lives’

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller says BLM activists are ‘playing Russian roulette’ with millions of lives by planning a mass Sydney protest next week.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller says Black Lives Matters activists are “playing Russian roulette” with millions of lives by planning a mass Sydney protest next week, given an earlier demonstration has been linked to the coronavirus outbreak in Melbourne’s public housing towers.

In a bid to prevent a similar disaster in NSW, the state’s top police officer said he would not only fight to have the protest banned in the courts, he would punish anyone who breached public health orders by attending the rally on July 28

“It’s not as though we have a dark history with protests in this state. We work with people organising thousands of them — many in the city — every year, and they are lawful and we respect that,” Mr Fuller told The Australian.

“But looking at the intelligence coming out of the Black Lives Matters protest in Melbourne, and that people who attended it came from the vertical towers, there are serious concerns.

“I don’t want to see the same thing happen in NSW, and getting a big group together for a Black Lives Matters protest in Sydney, when you know the dangers, is playing Russian roulette with the nearly eight million people who live in the state.

“We’ll be going to the Supreme Court to stop it from going ahead — win, lose or draw, if anyone turns up and breaches public health orders, we’ll start writing tickets for a thousand dollars.

“I might not be able to fine everyone who turns up but we’ll give it a bloody good shot.”

Mr Fuller said it was critical to take a strong stance on enforcing COVID-19 restrictions to properly support health officials and safeguard the health of the state’s residents and its fragile economy.

“We are taking a tougher ­approach to breaches because there is a real feeling we are on a knife’s edge at the moment,” he said.

 

“It’s crucial lessons are learned from the emergency and law enforcement response in other states. We have phone hook-ups with other (police commissioners) weekly … on top of that, staying on top of all the information from health official about what’s working well.

“In NSW, the key is that the police have been taking the lead, and taking the pressure off Health to be everything to everyone so that they’re able to worry about the health of the people and concentrating on doing the contract-tracing work, which is central to getting the rate of infections back into single figures.

“Long-term as commissioner, I need the economy to recover. I need people to be employed because if they’re not, we know a percentage of the population will turn to crime. We know that happened after the 1990 recession.

“So protecting the health of the people of NSW is clearly No 1, but the reality is anything we can do as the combat agency to protect the economy at the same time has a long-term positive impact on public safety in the state.”

Mr Fuller’s stance comes as The Australian can reveal legal advice prepared by leading workplace relations QC Stuart Wood questioning the legality of Victoria Police’s decision not to issue fines to 10,000 people at the June 6 Black Lives Matter Protest in Melbourne’s CBD.

The decision, backed by the Andrews government, saw $1652 fines for three organisers, despite a clear breach of the Chief Health Officer’s directives, which at the time prohibited outdoor gatherings of more than 20 people.

Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services has identified six people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the ­fortnight after they attended the protest, two of whom were part of a family cluster of 30 cases linked to the outbreak of at least 287 cases in the public housing towers in Melbourne’s inner northwest.

While the department says only one of the six was likely to have been infectious at the protest, it has refused to say whether a source of acquisition had been identified for the cases.