Several political allies of the NSW Premier have questioned her decision to extend the city’s lockdown for another week.And some of her top ministers have said that even with the lockdown extension, eliminating community spread of the Delta variant may not be possible.Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro said on Thursday morning that while the state’s crisis cabinet – comprised of senior ministers and chaired by Ms Berejiklian – had agreed to extend the lockdown, the Treasurer was a dissenting voice. Mr Barilaro said Dominic Perrottet was advocating for “the economy and jobs and business” when he argued against extending the stay-at-home orders for Greater Sydney until July 16. “He expressed those views, but the decision of the crisis cabinet was to continue the lockdown to give a bit of breathing room,” Mr Barilaro told Channel 7’s Sunrise program. “These are the robust debates we have and every member has a view and expresses it, but by the end of the meeting we all get on-board.”Mr Perrottet did not deny he had opposed the lockdown extension when interviewed on the 2GB radio station on Thursday. “My job is to advocate for businesses and keeping people in jobs, and that’s what I do. What I don’t do is speak about the individual positions that ministers take in relation to those discussions,” he said. He said he was in discussions with his federal counterpart, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, for more financial support for casual workers impacted by the lockdown. Businesses in NSW will benefit from a support package worth nearly $1.5bn, which was part of the recent state budget and will be available from July 19.That’s a few days after the Sydney lockdown is slated to end. “It’s going to be a very difficult next nine days, but I have complete faith that as a state, we will get through this,” Mr Perrottet said. According to a report in The Australian newspaper, Mr Perrottet told the crisis cabinet that the state might have to learn to live with the virus instead of maintaining community transmission at zero. That sentiment was echoed by Health Minister Brad Hazzard in a Wednesday press conference. “If the individuals that we need don’t hear (chief health officer Kerry Chant’s) message and don’t respond, then at some point we’re going to move to a stage where we’re going to have to accept that the virus has a life which will continue in the community,” Mr Hazzard said. Asked about those comments, Mr Barilaro told Sunrise that it was a “true comment” and that such a scenario was “very possible”. “The minister has been involved in this for 18 or 19 months, dealing with Covid-19, and he does not mince his words,” Mr Barilaro said.“He has said that, it is clear that in a week‘s time, we still may have community transmission and we may have to attack this differently, remembering that the Delta strain is a very different from the first strain, there is no rule book to work through. We make the best decisions on advice.”The lockdown extension was met by resistance from other allies of Ms Berejiklian as well. Liberal MP for Manly James Griffin wrote to Ms Berejiklian, saying his electorate should be exempt from the continued lockdown because of its “geography” and lack of positive cases.And Kiama MP Gareth Ward, who spent a decade as an elected Liberal before moving to the crossbench earlier this year after he confirmed he was under a police investigation, said many in his electorate could safely be exempted from the lockdown rules.
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