Feeble, stage-managed briefings not enough to hold NSW government to account

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian provides an update on COVID-19. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Christian Gilles

Aside from political tragics, most people would be unaware that NSW parliament has not been sitting over the past eight weeks. This is not entirely surprising; in ordinary times we manage just fine without the marathon schedules and forgettable speeches, the daily soap and sitcom of the state’s political elite.

But these are far from ordinary times.

For months now, the Berejiklian government has assumed unprecedented control over minute aspects of daily living, just as it did a year ago during the first pandemic wave. But unlike 2020, when public confidence soared, recent missteps and opaque decision-making have left the public unsure of its leadership and crying out for further information.

Across the community, confusion reigns over a spaghetti-tangle of health orders. The Health Minister has played down reports from nurses, paramedics and doctors of hospitals in crisis, while unilateral decisions have ushered in curfews and other dubious restrictions, like a halt on construction activity, or outdoor mask-requirements in unaffected suburbs.

This is to say nothing, too, of the conflicting health advice surrounding delays to the HSC and the return of students to face-to-face learning. And it is for these reasons, and others, that the Berejiklian government’s ongoing efforts to keep parliament shut for another six weeks is now shaping as a matter of hubris and urgency.

In a letter dispatched on Monday, Speaker Jonathan O’Dea said he would delay the sitting of the Legislative Assembly until October 12, with a caveat that it could return sooner “if the situation improves”.

Never mind that parliaments all over the world - including Canberra - have utilised innovative techniques to sit remotely, something Mr O’Dea, anticipating this problem a year ago, tried to implement in NSW without much success or interest from the premier’s office.

Ostensibly, the government says it’s not possible to sit while Covid-19 is circulating. Kiama MP Gareth Ward, disgusted by this view, put it like this to The Australian: “Dan Murphy’s is open but the parliament is shut. We send nurses, doctors, ambos, police, teachers and transport workers back to work - but politicians are too precious?”

The NSW Legislative Council faces a similar predicament in trying to recommence sittings. Its members formulated Covid-safe plans to reopen the chamber next week to immunised politicians. Consulting with immunologists and an occupational hygienist, their plan involved capacity limits, rapid antigen testing, and a newly-tweaked air-conditioning system that blasts cold air through the chamber eight times every hour.

But these ambitions were similarly kiboshed on Monday by NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant, who did not view the plans but nonetheless ruled that a September sitting would be completely out of order. That decision is now under review, with a verdict from NSW Health expected by the end of the week.

“With goodwill, we can make this happen, and politicians can be back to work being the voice of the community, raising their concerns,” said Labor’s leader in the upper house, Penny Sharpe.

There is really little doubt what is motivating the government’s position here. It is on the nose electorally and vaccination rates remain its only lifeline out of this mess. It wants to avoid scrutiny for as long as conceivably possible.

But at a time when the parliament has granted absolute authority to the Berejiklian government on the basis of good faith, it remains both laughable and insulting to the public that the only forum to test its standards of accountability are a daily briefing held each day at 11am.

These feeble, stage-managed press conferences, with their artificial limits on journalistic inquiry and amplification of select questions, are no substitute for a sitting parliament and its legislative powers to compel answers in the public interest.

Journalists, of course, are not able to make SO52 orders that force departments and ministerial offices to produce boxes of material for analysis and exposure. This mechanism alone has produced some of the greatest reporting triumphs in NSW politics over the past 12 months.

And yet it’s not only journalists and politicians seeking answers from this government. One need only observe Brad Hazzard’s recent appearance at a parliamentary committee hearing last month, during which he made an egregious ass of himself by shouting and threatening to walk out numerous times, which garnered a staggering 62,000 views.

Typically, videos uploaded by the NSW parliament are seen a couple of hundred times. Now, budget estimates hearings, a bug light for only the most ardent civic geeks, are clocking up viewership in the thousands.

This alone is the greatest indicator of the public’s hunger for information and transparency.