UPDATE: The Australian is now reporting that NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has “spectacularly dumped Health Minister Brad Hazzard’s bill seeking to expand the state’s Covid-19 emergency powers until 2023 following a bitter partyroom backlash.”
The NSW Government has approved plans to extend the state’s COVID-19 emergency powers until March 2023, The Australian has revealed.
The Perrottet government’s move reportedly triggered a heated backlash from the Coalition party room where MPs branded the decision an unacceptable overreach likely to be rejected by the communities.
The Australian reports: “East Hills MP Wendy Lindsay and Riverstone MP Kevin Connolly both spoke against the proposal, as did Wollondilly MP Nat Smith and Vaucluse MP Gabrielle Upton, among others.”
The extension has also raised questions about who’s actually running the state, and whether the government plans on, once again, moving the“freedom day” for the unvaccinated.
Less than two months ago, Dom Perrottet, then-NSW Treasurer, said once everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated, the state should open to everyone.
“I want to see more unity and not a two-tiered society,” Perrottet said at the time. “It’s not the government’s role to provide freedom.”
Now Premier, Perrottet is singing a different tune.
Earlier this month, Premier Perrottet backflipped on those earlier remarks, by extending the lockdown period for the state’s unvaccinated by two weeks.
Perrottet said the purpose of the move was to “incentivise” the unvaccinated into taking the vaccine.
That’s right, we’re being asked to believe that the state government thinks those who have held out this long are going to give it all up now for a two-week early mark. That those willing to lose their jobs wouldn’t be willing to lose two weeks in December.
But what’s two weeks when you’ve already spent six months in lockdown?
Is it likely that they’ve always had every intention of punishing the unvaccinated over Christmas by depriving them of their families and holiday celebrations? Is it likely they plan on extending these restrictions right into the new year?
Of course, if they told us that now, there would be more than a month of anger and opposition, so if they were clever, they’d probably wait until we’re closer to the date.
NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham said his party would not be supporting any extension of special Covid powers for Health Minister Brad Hazzard.
“The new Premier promised a restoration of freedom and we will hold him to that promise,” Latham said.
The emergency powers will allow the Health Minister to close parliament which removes all transparency and safeguards to our democracy and freedoms.
