‘Other masters’: Lisa Wilkinson’s swipe at Gladys Berejiklian on The Project

Lisa Wilkinson has dumped on the NSW Premier saying she must now “regret” criticising Victoria and that she may be obeying “other masters”.

Lisa Wilkinson has taken a fresh swipe at New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian after the state recorded 124 new cases of Covid-19, the highest in the current outbreak despite Sydney having been in lockdown for a month.

Talking on The Project from Sydney where she is also in lockdown, Wilkinson told her co-hosts that Ms Berejiklian likely now “regrets being disparaging about (Victorian Premier) Dan Andrews and how he handled things”.

She also speculated that Ms Berejiklian had “other masters” she was obeying who were preventing her from making the lockdown even tougher - a theory she presented no evidence for.

Lisa Wilkinson went to town on NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday night. Picture: Channel 10.

NSW appears to be in a covid Groundhog Day. Over the last month, it has repeatedly recorded several days of cases below 100 before shooting up into three digits again.

The state seems unable to reduce the number of people who are out and about in the community when they were, very likely unknowingly, infectious.

Now cases are seeping out from the epicentre in Fairfield in the city’s south west into surrounding local government areas.

Ms Berejiklian has warned the worst is yet to come, and that “case numbers will continue to go up”.

She urged people to avoid any non-essential contact with other people, even family members.

“It’s cruel how contagious it is. It is spreading like we’ve never seen before.”

But bearing all that in mind, and that the dangers of Delta were known, the question has lingered around the Premier of why the state didn’t lockdown sooner.

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NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian continues to face questions as to why the state cannot get the latest outbreak under control. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

Wilkinson’s swipe at Berejiklian

On The Project on Thursday, Wilkinson went to town on Ms Berejiklian.

“Gladys has been telling us for days there is all the green shoots, but we watched them wither on the vine today with her predicting that it is only going to get worse,” she told fellow hosts Carrie Bickmore and Peter Helliar.

“I’m wondering if she regrets being disparaging about Dan Andrews and how he handled things.

“In New South Wales, we’re looking at Victoria and how quickly you went into lockdown and how tight the numbers are staying and thinking ‘that’s what we should have done.’”

Bickmore said that Victorians who are in lockdown five – as opposed to Greater Sydney’s lockdown two – were now used to “doing the right thing”.

She cited Victorian authorities vising 436 homes to check people were isolating, only to find them all indeed at home obeying the rules.

“That’s pretty extraordinary. That everybody is just going, ‘I’ll do what I’ve got to do’”.

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Lisa Wilkinson pondered if the NSW Premier had “other masters”. Picture: Channel 10.

Berejiklian's “other masters”

Later in the program, Wilkinson again returned to NSW saying the “numbers were going in the wrong direction”.

The host stated she “didn’t understand” why the state government wasn’t bringing in more stringent rules and hinted there might be political reasons for that.

“(Ms Berejiklian) says she is following the health advice; a lot of people think if that’s the health advice that she has been following from the beginning then either the health advice is flawed or she has got some other masters that we don’t know about.

Carrie Bickmore said Victorians were playing by the rules. Picture: Channel 10.

“Because there is plenty of people who would like to see some of these rules reigned in so we can knock this thing on the head and get down to the zero (cases) that she keeps saying is her objective.”

The tightened lockdown rules in Greater Sydney are similar to those in other states in that there are only a limited number of reasons to leave home, work should be done from home wherever possible, schools are shut and all but “critical” shops are closed.

Where it differs is that there is no Melbourne style curfew, the distance limit is 10 km rather than five or even 2.5kms as in South Australia, masks do not have to be worn outdoors except in crowded areas and hardware and office supply shops are allowed to remain open as well as supermarkets, pharmacies, bottle shops and banks for walk in customers.

NSW has actually gone tougher than other states in some areas including closing down construction sites.

Originally published as ‘Other masters’: Lisa Wilkinson’s swipe at Gladys Berejiklian on The Project