As the Northern Rivers goes back into lockdown once again as a result of people coming to the area from Sydney it has been revealed that the ‘Crisis Cabinet’ failed to meet during key crisis points.
According to documents released to the NSW Upper House it shows that the Coalition government’s ‘Crisis Cabinet’, or Crisis Policy Committee, did not meet once in the eight critical days that followed the Eastern Suburbs COVID-19 outbreak on 16 June 2021. These were the eight days during which COVID spread through Greater Sydney creating the health crisis that is still engulfing the state.
The Crisis Policy Committee was originally convened in response to the 2019–20 NSW bushfire crisis and, according to the government’s answers, provides ‘overarching strategic policy leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic response’.
Greens MP David Shoebridge says that failure of the NSW Premier to even convene the Crisis Cabinet is the clearest explanation yet as to why NSW was so incredibly slow to take serious measures to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
‘During these eight critical days, as Sydney’s COVID cluster was spinning out of control, the so-called Crisis Cabinet didn’t meet even once.
‘What’s the point of a Crisis Cabinet that doesn’t meet in the middle of a crisis?’ he asked.
‘We have been looking for an explanation of why it took so long for the Coalition to order a city-wide lockdown and now we know, it’s because the Premier never even called the cabinet together.
‘We only found this out through repeated questions from the opposition and cross bench during online budget estimates.
‘No wonder this government is so keen to prevent Parliament’s return and what will come with that, which is a ramping up of accountability,’ Mr Shoebridge said.
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