Gladys Berejiklian and rule breakers cop blame: Newspoll

Voters blame the NSW government for not moving swiftly enough to curb the ongoing Covid-19 crisis gripping Greater Sydney.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

The NSW government has been blamed for not moving swiftly enough to curb the ongoing Covid-19 crisis gripping Greater Sydney, with voters marking down Premier Gladys Berejiklian for moving too late on her citywide lockdown and not imposing strict enough measures to limit the movement of people.

A Newspoll survey conducted exclusively for The Australian shows that while voters also blamed reckless individuals for ignoring the rules, or for not taking the lockdown seriously enough, a sizeable proportion felt the government equally bore responsibility for the predicament.

According to the polling, 22 per cent of voters believed the government was “more to blame”, compared with 29 per cent who saw individual actions as the primary cause of the city’s spiral into an ­extended period of lockdown.

A further 46 per cent nominated both the NSW government and individual behaviour as the source of the problem, the figures show.

Coalition voters tended to blame individual rule-breakers in far greater numbers than Labor and Greens supporters, who largely blamed the Berejiklian government for the crisis; elderly voters saw individual rule-breakers as a bigger problem than the government, while younger voters judged the matter as an even split.

Ms Berejiklian declined to comment on the polling, but Liberal MPs say the prolonged lockdown and consequent decision-making over restrictions had been damaging to the government’s brand.

Several have reported receiving large numbers of irate phone calls and an influx of correspondence to their electoral offices, with some callers in tears over the loss of their business or livelihood.

One Liberal MP said Ms Berejiklian was facing criticism on ­numerous fronts, including from residents of southwestern Sydney, whose suburbs have been targeted by increased enforcement and compliance action, as well as construction and building industry workers, whose job sites were shut down at the weekend.

 

Ms Berejiklian ordered non-urgent construction and building to cease until the end of July across Greater Sydney to limit the extra movement of people.

The decision was made after several cases of Covid-19 were identified at building sites and other workplace settings.

“When Victoria’s numbers come down and they start moving around again, people in Sydney are going to be furious,” said a Liberal MP, who believed the government was in a race against Victoria to exit from lockdown.

“It will give people a reason to start questioning the NSW government’s competence,” they added.

NSW recorded 98 fresh cases of the virus in the 24 hours to 8pm on Sunday, with 54 cases identified while they were in isolation; 37 people had the virus while they were active, or partially active, in the community.

The state recorded its fifth fatality from Covid-19 on Monday with the death of a woman in her 50s in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Green Valley.

The woman was identified as the mother of two Sydney removalists who allegedly travelled within regional NSW after being informed they had contracted the novel coronavirus.

Both men, aged 27, are due to face Orange Local Court on Aug­ust 30 for alleged breaches of the Public Health Orders. NSW Health issued a statement extending its condolences to the woman’s family and friends.

The majority of cases detected on Sunday were, once again, recorded in the South Western Sydney Local Health District.