Coronavirus: Daniel Andrews lockdown not for us, says NSW

The NSW government has committed itself to avoiding a ‘Daniel Andrews-style lockdown’ of the state to deal with rising cases of COVID-19 transmission.

NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The NSW government has committed itself to avoiding a “Daniel Andrews-style lockdown” of the state to deal with rising cases of COVID-19 transmission, with the Victorian government’s policy being regarded as an economic catastrophe that will cripple businesses and jeopardise ongoing JobKeeper support from the federal government.

The Australian can reveal that senior members of the Berejiklian cabinet have united around a long-term COVID-19 strategy that does not support wide-scale lockdown measures of the kind deployed in Victoria and instead has warmed towards testing the state’s fortified hospital system against the impacts of the virus.

This is in part due to the disastrous effects of lockdowns on the broader economy, but also because relying on lockdowns will be unsustainable over the next two or three years once JobKeeper payments are switched off and the virus continues circulating without a vaccine.

The growing view among some senior NSW government ministers is that in order to survive the pandemic, members of the public will inevitably have to “get sick” and the state’s newly armoured healthcare system, which has tripled its ICU cap­acity, will have to be tested.

“There’s complete unity in the government that we will not go into lockdown, we do not want to go into a Dan Andrews-style lockdown,” one NSW government minister said.

While there is some sympathy for the plight of the Andrews government, the prevailing view is that its decision to place the city of Melbourne into quarantine is a mistake.

Some ministers think the strategy should be rescinded so only the most at-risk tower blocks or postcodes are quarantined. They say fantasising about a country with zero cases of transmissions is not feasible for a ­future economic recovery.

There is a further view that the federal government will grow impatient with providing JobKeeper subsidies to states that lock up their economies, and may switch off the welfare payments to encourage a relaxing of restrictions.

NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello, who oversees the digital arm of the government and its data collection, said any move to lock down parts of NSW would have profound economic consequences. The damage to community morale would also be significant.

“It is something that, quite frankly, should only be used once,” he said of the lockdowns.

“Every time you lock down, more and more businesses are not going to make it back, and beyond that it’s harder to enforce because people will become more agitated that their lives are being repeatedly disrupted so dramatically.

“I’m not in the shoes of the Victorian Premier, he’s got to make very tough decisions with the circumstances in front of him, but I think everyone in NSW does not want to go back to a lockdown position, and we need to move heaven and earth to make sure that’s our absolute last option.”

The Andrews government previously adopted a strategy of precision quarantining of the kind advocated by the Berejiklian government — it locked down public housing estates where the virus was known to be circulating, then moved wider to surrounding postcodes.

When this failed, it reverted to a city-wide quarantine of Melbourne when transmission levels reached a critical mass.

On Tuesday, a further 270 infections were reported in the state compared with 13 cases in NSW.

Billions of dollars have been spent fortifying the healthcare system against the impacts of COVID-19, although successful curve-flattening efforts in April, May and June meant these upgrades have not been tested.

Currently there are 89 people being treated in hospital for COVID-19 infections, with one person in intensive care.