Covid-19: Disgruntled Sydney mayors reject Gladys Berejiklian ‘PR stunt’

The mayors of Sydney’s heavily locked down western and south-western suburbs have walked away empty-handed from meetings with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian described as “a PR stunt”

Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Khal Asfour attends the virtual meeting held between hotspot mayors and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Tuesday.

The mayors of Sydney’s heavily locked-down western and south-western suburbs have walked away empty-handed from meetings with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, with one describing the zoom sessions as “a PR stunt” that offered no solutions to the crises facing their communities.

More meetings will be held over coming days with Treasurer Dominic Perrottet but the best one mayor said he could hope for was that Mr Perrottet would soon become premier.

“I would warmly support any leader willing to take over who is more sympathetic to the plight of western Sydney residents because we should all be living under the same circumstances and constraints,” said Cumberland mayor Steve Christou.

Mr Christou noted Mr Perrottet’s comments last week that western and southwest Sydney should reopen at the same time as the rest of the city to avoid a two-speed recovery, a commitment he said Ms Berejiklian was not prepared to make in their meeting.

Much of the criticism during the three sessions – each with four mayors from 12 affected LGAs – focused on harsh restrictions not being imposed on Sydney’s more privileged eastern and northern suburbs.

Mr Christou said he told Ms Berejiklian his community was working class and most could not work from home.

“The Premier got some long overdue realities of what’s happening out here and the harsh circumstances of what people are now experiencing,” he said.

Mr Christou said he was “most concerned that this was a PR stunt just paying us lip service.”

He said if he was approached by a law firm over a possible legal challenge to the current lockdown orders, he would consider it. “Our people are hurting, we’ve got families that are not going to recover, that can no longer afford to pay their mortgage, their rent, their bills or put food on the table for their children.

“Many businesses are not going to reopen, come opening up time – they’ve been devastated.”

Most of the mayors asked Ms Berejiklian to end curfews and other restrictions absent from the eastern suburbs.

Liverpool mayor Wendy Waller said it was at least “a positive to be at the table, to give her that personal feedback, because there’s been a very top-down sort of policy”.

“To be buzzed by police helicopters in the evening … doesn’t give you a warm, safe, fuzzy feeling,” she said.

Several mayors asked why swimming pools couldn’t be opened in the LGAs. “It does rub salt in the wound when you see all those people on the beaches without their masks,” Ms Waller said.

Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour fumed at “the double standards in policing when we see pictures at Bondi, Coogee, the eastern suburbs beaches and people not social distancing and not having the extra police we’re faced with.”

He said the discussion became heated when the mayors raised discrimination, saying residents in southwest and west Sydney felt unfairly treated. He was critical of the two-hour limit on outdoor recreation in the affected LGAs.

Mr Asfour said Ms Berejiklian gave no guarantees but promised to raise concerns with the health department and cabinet.