‘Time to get tough on rule Covid-19 breakers’, says NSW Police Minister David Elliott

NSW Police Minister is calling for health officials to mandatorily report breaches of Covid-19 health orders uncovered during contact tracing.

NSW Police Minister David Elliott. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

NSW Police Minister David ­Elliott is calling for health officials to mandatorily report breaches of Covid-19 health orders uncovered during contact tracing, as frustrations increase over ­flagrant rule-breaking occurring in hotspot regions of Sydney.

Mr Elliott took his case to crisis cabinet on Wednesday following complaints from the upper hierarchy of the NSW Police Force regarding the reluctance of some health bureaucrats to share information of rule-breaking uncovered during interviews.

The complaints have heightened over the agency’s reluctance to provide details of a funeral gathering in July in the west Sydney suburb of Pendle Hill, where some 50 people attended, resulting in the majority contracting the virus. Details of attendees have not been supplied to NSW police, although in some cases they have laid charges against residents who violated the rules.

Mr Elliott is understood to be proposing that compliance breaches identified by health teams be reported in the same mandatory fashion as those concerning child abuse or sexual assault. He declined to comment when contacted; the Premier’s office did not response to questions.

A police source familiar with the processes said: “Sometimes we just have to try a little bit harder (to get required information).”

Senior police officials spent Thursday redrafting the state’s public health orders to strengthen their ability to fine people ahead of a scale-up of operations and deployment of extra Australian Defence Force personnel.

The Australian has learned the NSW government has made three requests of the ADF. It has asked for 500 extra troops to assist with street-based compliance operations and for more officers to help with contact tracing ­efforts. The third request is to help establish a new mass ­vaccination centre. Officers are seeking to tighten three areas of concern that are driving mobility through alleged misuse: outdoor exercise; the “singles bubble”; and exemptions allowing people to travel to holiday homes.

During Wednesday night’s crisis cabinet session, Mr Elliott said officers were seeing too many residents flouting the spirit of the exemptions. He said police were struggling to enforce penalties due to vagaries with some of the proscriptions. Anticipating a clash with Health Minister Brad Hazzard, Mr Elliott sought prior support of the five crisis cabinet members – including Premier Gladys Berejiklian – before ­attending the meeting and pitching a plan to realign the state’s Covid response to his portfolio.

According to an account of the meeting, the Police Minister ­allegedly said: “The police have a great deal of difficulty in enforcing compliance, and public confidence has been lost in the government because (the public) have seen breaches in consistency (of rules’ application).”

Mr Hazzard did not receive a briefing from Mr Elliott and was blindsided by the request to redraft the health orders and place police commissioner Mick Fuller in charge of the pandemic operation. Mr Elliott and Mr Fuller gave five-minute presentations outlining their concerns with compliance. When Ms Berejiklian asked Mr Hazzard to respond, he allegedly said of the presen­tations: “That’s just waffle.”

Mr Hazzard did not respond to questions and neither did Mr ­Elliott or the NSW Police Force.

Mr Hazzard, who will have sign-off on the redrafted health orders, said he welcomed a re-examination of them, a stance understood to be at odds with his position the previous evening.

A NSW Health spokesperson said: “NSW Health protects the confidential health information of individuals so that they feel they can come forward and give contact tracers the key details of activities they may have undertaken rather than concealing events that could put the public at risk.”