Premier tightens grip on ‘difficult day’

All public transport in greater Sydney will switch to a Sunday timetable from Monday morning in a bid to further limit movement around the city.

The light rail during the Sydney lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

All public transport in greater Sydney will switch to a Sunday timetable from Monday morning in a bid to further limit movement around the city, as harsher lockdown measures isolate southwest Sydney and halt construction.

Trains, buses, ferries and light rail will run at about half their regular Monday-to-Friday service for the next two weeks, with Transport for NSW urging only essential workers travel.

Authorities expect to be inundated on Monday with applications for financial help, including one-off business grants of up to $15,000, as new restrictions – including the closure of all non-essential retail – hit businesses.

All major government projects including the Sydney Metro and WestConnex have been halted as the construction industry shuts down for at least the next fortnight, a move expected to cost the state $800m to $1bn a week.

The heightened restrictions came as the state had its fourth death of the outbreak, a woman in her 90s, and 105 more local Covid-19 cases – 27 of them infectious while in the community.

Declaring her decision to extend restrictions “the most difficult day I’ve had”, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned results of the harder lockdown would not be known for at least four or five days because of the lag in cases.

“I won’t rule out any tweaks in the next few days if we’ve missed anything,” she said. “The government took the difficult decision to abandon what we call non-critical construction work.”

The announcement sparked spontaneous protests on Saturday with truck drivers stopping traffic and blaring horns for hours on the Sydney Harbour and Anzac bridges.

Truck driver Barry “Baz” Stowers, 44, of Revesby in Sydney’s southwest, said he organised the spontaneous protest when “frustrations” boiled over after learning he would be out of a job in a matter of days. “It was just the shock of it,” he said. “I worked yesterday and everything was going fine until 11 o’clock and I got told I have no job on Monday.”

Mr Stowers said his industry had been one of the safest during the pandemic, with drivers sending paperwork electronically and staying in their trucks to avoid infection risk, and felt tarred by the same brush after some cases were recorded on construction sites.

In a chaotic day on Sunday the NSW government revised its advice from the day before that only health and emergency workers could leave the Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool and Fairfield local government areas.

After protests and confusion among residents, the government expanded the list of essential workers to include dozens of categories including people working in supermarkets and neighbourhood shops, office supplies, pet stores, plant nurseries, food manufacturing, parks, bottle shops and data storage facilities.

All workers leaving those LGA’s still need to get a Covid-19 test every three days.

The Sydney outbreak continued to hit in the city’s southwest hardest, with 76 of the 105 cases recorded in the region.

Chief health officer Kerry Chant expressed concern Muslim communities observe the annual Eid celebration on Tuesday in a Covid-safe fashion with members of their immediate household. “Do not have visitors to your home including family members and do not visit others,” she said.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said on Sunday claims for assistance under the state’s rescue package would be processed within four or five days but pleaded for patience.

Meanwhile, Catholic private hospitals called on national cabinet to make vaccinations compulsory for all hospital staff across Australia in light of the greater risks of the Delta variant.

Catholic Health Australia (CHA) said all hospital staff should be required to be vaccinated. “Every year healthcare staff are required to get vaccinated against the flu and yet there’s no such directive for Covid,” CHA policy director James Kemp said.

The commonwealth has ruled all residential aged care staff be vaccinated by mid-September, with paid leave for casual staff to do so. CHA said national cabinet should put in place a similar scheme for all hospital staff across Australia, public and private.