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COVID-19 and Parliamentary Sittings

Published on: February 2022

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-122917

COVID-19 and Parliamentary Sittings

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The House will now consider an electronic petition signed by 20,000 or more persons regarding a request that the Legislative Assembly be recalled to discuss and vote on COVID-19 pandemic lockdown regulations and other business.

The question is that the House take note of the petition.

Mr ROY BUTLER (Barwon) (16:05:08):

In June last year, when the pandemic was entering a particularly acute phase in Australia, the New South Wales Government suspended Parliament. Faced with a sudden rapid rise in COVID-19 case numbers and working on health advice that we never saw, it put a temporary stop to the normal democratic process. We were the only State in Australia to do so. On the face of it, that might have seemed like a good idea given that the health advice warned against large indoor gatherings, which is what Parliament basically is. Research showed that large gatherings of people were a major vector for spreading the disease. While there may have been a pretext for it at the time, the suspension went for months longer than it should have. Once the fog of confusion had passed and a clearer view of what was happening emerged, the Government should have recalled Parliament to chart a path to safety.

While the State continued to operate as it always does because of amazing people working at a local level, at the highest level the Government bunkered down and continued to issue orders and make decisions without the usual checks and balances afforded by a sitting Parliament. While it might be argued that the unprecedented public health emergency necessitated unprecedented measures, suspending Parliament was actually counterproductive because it narrowed the Government's vision at a time when it should have been more open to a wider range of solutions to the crisis and more transparent to the public, who were confused and concerned about what was happening and needed to be better informed. It left many people feeling abandoned and helpless.

In the report from the February 2022 Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting where matters of international security are discussed at a high level, it talked about the global sense of learned helplessness that has come about as the result of a series of global crises, among them the pandemic. The report said that this sense of helplessness, the feeling that nothing can be done about our dire situation, has resulted in our liberal democratic institutions coming under fire. To quote the report:

This perception is highly dangerous because it can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Societies that have concluded that they cannot solve humankind's most challenging problems might no longer even try to turn the tide.

It further says that this is a time that we should be shoring up our democratic institutions. It says:

The combination of strong democracy at home and reliable cooperation among democracies abroad is still the best hope for dealing with these challenges.

By suspending Parliament for as long as it did, the Government undermined our democracy, but it went further than that. Calls for papers were held up for months, making a mockery of the Government's claims to be transparent and accountable. One of the fundamental principles of a democratic government is that the incumbent administration opens itself up to the scrutiny of other elected representatives and allows voices from outside of the party in power to call the government to account for its actions, point out the problems with what it is doing and draw attention to any other oversights.

When a government ignores these checks and balances, it can run into serious problems. The exchange of ideas is a vital part of the democratic process. It allows a range of voices to be heard and points of view to be argued. As a result, the ideas that are best for the people and the running of the State can emerge. It is also essential to avoid problems such as self-interest or blind prejudice creeping into public administration. The idea of an assembly where ideas regarding the future of the people and the running of the State can be discussed is an ancient one, going back to at least 3,000 BC in Mesopotamia, when the power of the king was restrained by assemblies. Those gatherings inspired the more famous assemblies of ancient Greece.

Over the centuries, while monarchs, tyrants and dictators have often ruled without the advice of assemblies, the representative assembly has emerged time and again in Rome, Switzerland, Iceland and even amongst the Vikings. In the twentieth century, the era where many nations adopted broad suffrage, some political leaders used State emergencies to bypass democracy, usually to their detriment. Whatever the motives and whatever the crisis, governing without a sitting Parliament leaves a government vulnerable to making bad decisions that are blind to local realities and peculiarities that only members from specific electorates would know. In a global emergency, it is an especially dangerous precedent to set to move away from democracy in any way. I thank the 20,000-plus people who took the time to sign this petition in a very short amount of time. There was a huge amount of support from the community to see this matter debated. I hope that we learn from the previous shutting down of the Parliament and that we never see it happen again.

Mr GURMESH SINGH (Coffs Harbour) (16:09:49):

I make a contribution to the debate on the petition presented by the member for Barwon. The petition states that under our former Premier we have seen calamity and chaos. That assertion is ludicrous. The New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Government has risen to every challenge the pandemic has thrown at it. I was at Parliament House for a committee hearing when we had our first lockdown, back in March 2020. I remember the panic that set in because we have never done this before in our nation's history, to my knowledge. There were society-wide implications for having lockdowns like that. Let us hope that we do not have to go back to those again.

It certainly has not been easy but, since then, the Government has been working hard to keep our community safe. On the flip side, it has been working to keep our society as open as it possibly can and support businesses where it can. Businesses have seen record support from our Government. There have been billions of dollars invested in the various support programs, and schools remained open for as long as possible. I congratulate and single out the Hon. Sarah Mitchell, who did not push back school opening dates, unlike Labor States like Queensland. Schools opened on day one and rapid antigen tests were sourced and provided in a large logistical exercise, spanning the breadth and width of the State, to ensure that people were able to get tested and continue education in a safe way.

We met the challenge of getting our whole population, or as much of our population as possible, vaccinated within a very short window. While that might seem like less of a challenge for people in the metropolitan area, in regional areas, like the electorates of the member for Barwon, the member for Murray and on the North Coast, it presented its own logistical challenges. Our Government, in conjunction with the Federal Government, was able to meet those challenges. I acknowledge the challenges faced in the member for Dubbo's electorate and in the neighbouring electorates to the west.

The Dine & Discover vouchers, Parents NSW vouchers and Stay NSW vouchers support families while also stimulating the economy at a time when it needs stimulus. The Government is not afraid of being held to account. That is the job of the Opposition and the crossbench. That was true during the Alpha outbreak, the Delta outbreak and the Omicron outbreak. I note that the Parliament was shut for a very short period and we were back here in October. We lost four sitting weeks, which is 12 sitting days. We made half of that time up before the end of the year.

I also acknowledge that the Minister for Health has always had a generous policy of sharing his phone number and contact details widely. Members of the Opposition and crossbench often had better luck getting through to him than we on this side did. I am only joking, but he has been very accommodating to members of the Opposition and crossbench in giving information and being open and available to them. The former Deputy Premier, the Hon. John Barilaro, also had regular Zoom meetings with all regional members of Parliament to keep them abreast of and updated on the evolving situation in New South Wales. Many members of the Opposition and crossbench took advantage of those regular meetings as well.

Our regional communities were more vulnerable to a large-scale COVID outbreak than metropolitan communities were. They have smaller hospitals, fewer hospitals and less resources than metropolitan areas do. So we needed to make sure that our communities were safe. At that time, the vast majority of New South Wales residents were unvaccinated and the challenges of the Delta variant meant that we had to keep people out of risk's way. One of the biggest risks to the community at that time was presented by members of Parliament coming into Sydney and then returning home to their electorates. We have seen that is how COVID spread in other places, through delivery drivers and the like. To conclude, there was no calamity, no chaos, just a Government who was innovating to allow Australia's oldest parliament to continue amidst a once‑in‑a‑century pandemic.

Mr PHILIP DONATO (Orange) (16:14:54):

I thank the member for Barwon for sponsoring this petition to the House. This is an important debate, as it is fundamentally about democracy. When the Government suspended parliamentary sittings, 24,500 petitioners responded, demanding that it recall the New South Wales Parliament immediately to discuss and vote on ongoing lockdown regulations and other important parliamentary business. During Premier Berejiklian's daily COVID media briefing on 21 August 2021, she said, "I'm the Premier of the largest State in Australia, and I expect to be held to account. I expect every decision that we [the New South Wales Government] take to be scrutinised." If the then Premier were genuine with her words, she would have brought Parliament back to allow scrutiny, transparency and accountability to continue. In fact, she did the very opposite; she suspended sittings, which conveniently removed any scrutiny by the democratically elected members of this House.

During this unprecedented suspension of Parliament, the community of New South Wales copped the wrath of the Government's policymaking on the run, which had devastating financial and dramatic lifestyle implications for the citizens of this State. Had Parliament been sitting, the Government would have had to face the tough questions. One of many poor decisions made by the Government which evaded scrutiny was its COVID-19 Roadmap to Freedom and the unfair trade restrictions it imposed on businesses. It was a dog's breakfast. It was not just inequitable, it was inconsiderate and inconsistent. The trade restrictions contained within the roadmap applied a four‑square‑metre rule, however, in the case of hairdressing and nail salons it was capped at a maximum of five people, irrespective of the total area of the individual salon. Pubs were not being limited to a maximum number of patrons, as long as they stuck to the four‑square‑metre rule.

A hair salon in Orange, whose owner was being financially impacted by this unfair decision, was large enough to comfortably cater for six staff and up to 12 clients under the four-square-metre rule, but the Government imposed a random cap of five people allowed in salons. That made no sense at all, as hairdressers' clients are typically by appointment and they are seated for the duration of the visit, whereas a pub typically has people wandering to and from a bar and there is bound to be increased interaction among a greater number of people. I am not singling out pubs, but it is a comparison which highlights one of many inconsistent and unfair decisions which was not able to be scrutinised because the Government shut down the Parliament, and in doing so it road‑blocked democracy. The litany of health order restrictions imposed on all of us were unable to be challenged in this place. Our communities' freedoms were subject to terms and conditions.

Each member of this House was elected by the people in their community to represent them and to challenge Government decisions which impact them. That process was removed and denied by the suspension of Parliament. I note the current Premier provided a written response to this petition and obfuscated blame for the decision to suspend sittings. He stated, "postponement of scheduled sittings is a matter for the Presiding Officers". Yet he then referred to Sessional Order 47A; that the Government may, in the public interest, write to the Speaker and request an alternate day or hour for the next meeting of the House. The Premier further wrote in his response that additional sittings were held in November—as the member for Coffs Harbour alluded to—to make up for the period that Parliament was suspended. But November sittings did not help the hair salon owners whose businesses were financially impacted and devastated in August, and whose elected members were unable to vigorously represent them here and hold the Government to account and scrutinise its decisions.

I called for the introduction of remote sittings to alleviate a total suspension of Parliament, but the Government was very slow to adapt. It was completely foreseeable that the pandemic was not going to quickly pass, and moves to facilitate remote sittings ought to have been made far sooner, if for no other reason than to keep up with the twenty‑first century. Age does not necessarily translate to wisdom; the New South Wales Parliament is the oldest parliament in Australia and the last to adopt electronically‑assisted remote sittings.

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore) (16:19:46):

Since the pandemic began, New South Wales has set the benchmark for other States in Australia with its response to COVID, and that is not by accident. It is by the work of this Parliament, by the people across this Parliament—the Presiding Officers, the staff, people from every single party, people from the Government, people working from the crossbench and the Opposition—all working together for the community to support, in particular, our frontline healthcare workers and emergency service workers who delivered the response to COVID. We did it all because of the advice that we received from the experts. We made decisions the best we could at the time, with the information we had to hand, in unprecedented circumstances for us here in New South Wales and across the globe. We relied on the people who knew best. I respect the decisions made for this Parliament because they were made with the best intentions, and based upon the best advice and the best information available at the time. I respect the decisions made for New South Wales for the same reasons.

I think everyone in this place would agree with the spirit of the member for Barwon bringing forward this motion to talk about scrutiny, transparency and accountability. That is why we are all here—it is why we should all be here. But the notion that we can ignore the Delta outbreak in New South Wales and its devastating consequences for people's lives and livelihoods, and pretend that we did not need to respond to it and keep people safe in our own workplace and across the entire State, is naïve at best. To now debate, many months later, what we should have done at the time of the Delta outbreak, when we were seeing incredible impacts across the community—I am not sure what we should have done differently. Should we have made people that have underlying health conditions turn up to Parliament to work? Should we have made parliamentary staff—attendants, Hansard, catering, cleaning—attend this place so that members could turn up to work and continue to have their say, keep their voice, while denying the voice and the wellbeing, health and safety of every other person within this precinct?

I do not agree with the premise of what has been put to us today, because I believe the health advice led by Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant—whom we have relied upon with such incredible respect for her precision, ethics and integrity throughout this entire two‑year period—and I think that advice continues to stand. On 22 June last year, when members were sitting in this Chamber discussing the budget, I am sure that every single one of us was thinking that things had changed. The whole world, the whole of Australia, thought things had changed, but on that very day we were impacted by a COVID outbreak within our building. These were the kinds of circumstances faced across New South Wales. Considering that those who work in the parliamentary precinct are a melting pot of every single community across this State, to force everybody to return to this building—members, staff and support—for that period of time would have been negligent. I support the decisions of the Presiding Officers.

I acknowledge what some of my colleagues have mentioned. All sides of the Parliament agreed to work together to make up those lost days and to improve and increase the opportunities for members to represent their communities. We had the additional sitting days in November. I note that the member for Orange does not think that that was substantial enough for the issues that were faced earlier in the year during the Delta outbreak, but the Government has acknowledged that, time and time again. The former Premier's strong leadership saw this State through multiple waves of COVID. She said, on many occasions, that she would not get every decision right and that she would listen to the community, she would listen to every member in this place—she would listen to the member for Orange, she would listen to the member Barwon—and she would make the necessary changes if the Government did not get things right. And that is what she did. What we have done as a Government throughout the pandemic—throughout every lockdown, throughout every furlough or impact—is stand by the community. Throughout this pandemic, the Government has made decisions, changed decisions, tweaked restrictions and settings to make sure it is doing the best that it can.

But we have also had significant financial support packages, including for hairdressers, such as the one the member for Orange mentioned in his contribution—and we should. We should support our businesses and our community. We should support people who are devastatingly impacted by the decisions that a government has to make in the face of a one-in-100-year pandemic. That is what we have done. I stand by the decisions that we made to do that. I stand by the support that we provided to the community and that we are continuing to provide to the community—small business grants and grants for temporary visa holders and asylum seekers, refugees and women escaping domestic violence. I stand by those decisions and this Parliament has stood by those decisions.

Mrs HELEN DALTON (Murray) (16:25:05):

I thank my colleague the member for Barwon for sponsoring this petition in the House. Although Parliament is back in session, it is important that we have this debate to make it crystal clear that a government should never shut down Parliament. Last year when this Government channelled its inner Donald Trump and decided that democracy did not matter, it was the rural areas that were hurt must by the sneaky decisions it made behind closed doors. The New South Wales Government made new laws from Sydney with no consideration for people in the bush.

Mr Gurmesh Singh:

That's a lie.

Mrs HELEN DALTON:

It is not a lie; it is the truth. New South Wales border communities were trapped between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the Government told us to stop travelling to limit the spread of COVID-19 and, on the other hand, it has gutted the rural healthcare system. Many residents in my electorate are fully dependent on Victorian hospitals and doctors, and need to cross the border for medical care. Do those opposite know the border? It is the Murray River—the border that none of them ever considered. For years, the New South Wales Government has been bludging off the superior Victorian healthcare system, and it still does today. The New South Wales Government pays. Go get the facts; sort it out. Moama residents go to Echuca for health care. Wentworth people go to Mildura. Deniliquin folk go to Shepparton. How about Government members come to the area and have a look? The Minister for Western New South Wales should come out and have a look.

Mr Dugald Saunders:

Happy days.

Mrs HELEN DALTON:

Happy days, yes; we will welcome him with open arms. But the New South Wales border restrictions made behind closed doors with no parliamentary scrutiny created havoc for us. People were prevented from attending their regular hospital for cancer treatment. They were stopped from going to work and from seeing their family. Rural New South Wales was abandoned by this city-centric Government. The member for North Shore has never been over the Blue Mountains. Our vaccine rates were half those of Sydney residents for much of last year. Then, in its wisdom, the New South Wales Government decided to strip vaccines away from rural areas and give them to year 12 students in Sydney. Imagine that?

My electorate includes the Far West Local Health District, which serves the most Indigenous people in the State. The Government did not think about them, did it? People from the Far West contacted me to let me know that the Government had cancelled their scheduled vaccine appointments so Sydneysiders could get their doses. Happy days for Sydney. There was no way to scrutinise the outrageous decision to strip Indigenous and rural communities of their vaccines. Parliament was not sitting, so the betrayal of our First Nations people was covered up. We know The Nationals always roll over for the Liberal Party in Cabinet meetings. They were happy for their own electorates to be disadvantaged.

Mr Gurmesh Singh:

You are lying again.

Mrs HELEN DALTON:

You were. Those decisions deserved scrutiny and explanation in Parliament. It was 2021, but the New South Wales Government seemed to be the only organisation in Australia that could not figure out how to work remotely. We all had to do it.

Mr Dugald Saunders:

We were working.

Mrs HELEN DALTON:

Yet this Parliament could not do it. It was amazing. The Government expected every school in New South Wales and tens and thousands of students and teachers to work from home but said it was too hard for 140 MPs. We could not vote and we could not take points of order—dear oh dear, honestly! In Australia, Parliament is the cornerstone of democracy. The people who signed this petition have expressed their views loud and clear. This Government must never again be allowed to kill our democracy. I encourage any city MPs to come out to the bush and speak to the people along the border to see how they feel about Gladys' decision.

Mr DUGALD SAUNDERS (DubboMinister for Agriculture, and Minister for Western New South Wales) (16:29:09):

— I thank the member for Barwon for bringing this petition forward. I think he has done it in the right spirit but there has been a little unreasonable behaviour from a couple of his colleagues about some suggestions—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The member for Murray will resume her seat. The Clerk will stop the clock. The member for Murray needs to put her mask on when she has finished speaking. The Minister will be heard in silence.

Mr DUGALD SAUNDERS:

The suggestion that the only way democracy works is with people sitting in this building is ludicrous. We have all worked, as you have, Madam Deputy Speaker, through this pandemic. This is just a sledge-a-thon for no reason. The member for Murray knows you can work in your community without being in this building. We lost 12 sitting days and made up six. Six days were lost.

Mr Philip Donato:

When was that?

Mr DUGALD SAUNDERS:

In November at the end of last year. The sittings happened. We came back as quickly as we could to get on with the business of Parliament. But, in the meantime, we were in the community doing what was needed. Do not pretend there was no way to connect with the community, because it could be done. The members in the Chamber were invited to be part of regular hook-ups with the Deputy Premier, the health district and the health Minister, as I was. We were there together. They had input in what was happening. Some decisions around the pandemic had never been made before, but they were involved collegially and were offered the opportunity to provide feedback.

The member for Orange made some remarks about businesses. Yes, it was tough; it was tough for everyone. He mentioned nail salons. All businesses faced the same scenario. Pubs and hospitality venues of all kinds were impacted. Nail salons and hairdressers were impacted. Some people did not want to come back to work until there were no cases anywhere and some wanted to have six clients not five. You cannot please every single person in every single case. Professionals made decisions that were then rolled out. We all had input, we all had to communicate with our electorates and we all tried the very best we could to do that.

Where other than New South Wales would you have rather been for the past two years? Think about it seriously. This is the only place in the world that I wanted to be. Nowhere else in Australia handled the pandemic as well as we did. We have managed it from a health perspective, we have kept the economy going and we have supported businesses of all kinds. There is nowhere else you would rather be. Yes, there are lessons we have learnt, but we had not experienced a pandemic like this in our lifetime so we have done extremely well. Suggesting we could have done better is a little over the top. In the spirit of the petition, we recognise Parliament is a bastion that we hold in high esteem. I think we all agree on that. But we must also respect that we all had a role to play, and most of us did that.

Mr ROY BUTLER (Barwon) (16:33:00):HansardHansard

That was entertaining. I thank members representing the electorates of Orange, Murray, Coffs Harbour and North Shore and the Minister for Western New South Wales for their contributions. I will address some of the remarks made by Government members. I say to the member for Coffs Harbour that I have never backed away from acknowledging Ministers who are accessible. I have always acknowledged them, and the health Minister is very accessible. He certainly changed the health orders a number of times upon my request. I have never stopped acknowledging that. But it is not about that; it is about the lack of democratic process for those people who might not have that access and be able to have those discussions. I also submit that SMSs and phone calls do not make it into the . They are not in public view. They are not transparent like debates in .

The Minister and I attended the same Zoom meetings with the Deputy Premier. I thanked the Deputy Premier for those meetings. From memory I was involved in two, and I do not think I missed any. I do not know whether there were others that perhaps he was involved in that I was not party to, but the two that I was involved in were very helpful. I thank the Deputy Premier for the meetings, but it is not a substitute for Parliament sitting.

Hansard

To the member for North Shore I say that we did need to respond. What we did not need to do was shut down or deny the voice of our people and their ability to come to this place. The whole purpose for me speaking on this petition today is to make sure that we never get back to a situation where the residents of our State are not able to have a voice in Parliament, on , which is the way it is meant to be. She mentioned the health advice. Every day we were told what decisions had been made in secret or in private. We never saw the health advice. We never saw the evidence that was used to underpin those decisions. Again, we should have been more transparent with the public about that information. I can say to the Minister that I am not complaining about our ability to connect with our community. We have multiple channels and ways of doing that. This petition is about the ability to bring the concerns of communities to this place and have them addressed.

Petition noted.