Disgraced former Liberal Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian gets no joy from her Supreme Court appeal of ICAC corrupt conduct findings

IMAGE: Nationwide News, 26 July 2024

Gladys Berejiklian joined the Liberal Party of Australia in 1991 whilst at the University of Sydney and was President of the NSW Young Liberals in 1996 - 1997.

Between 1998 - 2003 she describes her employment as "Executive, Commonwealth Bank of Australia".

Ms Berejiklian was elected as the Liberal Member for Willoughby in the NSW Legislative Assembly in March 2003. An elected position she held for 18 years, 9 months and 9 days - first as a member of the Opposition, then as a Minster of the Crown, then as NSW Premier & finally as a backbench member of a Coalition Government she had recently led, until 'retiring' in disgrace on 30 December 2021.

In June 2023 Ms. Berejiklian was the subject of adverse findings made in a two-volume report (Vol 1 at pp.13-14) of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) titled “Investigation into the conduct of the then member of Parliament for Wagga Wagga and then Premier and others (Operation Keppel)”.

This report followed the October 2021 announcement that ICAC would conduct a further public inquiry in Operation Keppel investigating whether between 2012 and 2018, as a Minister of the Crown, as Treasurer or as Premier, Gladys Berejiklian had engaged in corrupt conduct.

Ms Berejiklian appealed the findings of the ICAC report in the Supreme Court-Court of Appeal, principally claiming material errors of law in or in relation to the ICAC report findings.

She lost in a judgment delivered on Friday, 26 July 2024, which stated in part:

"Decision: Amended Summons dismissed with costs.....

In the result, each ground of review has been rejected. Ms Berejiklian ’s application to quash the Commission’s findings of “serious corrupt conduct” or to have those findings declared as made without or in excess of jurisdiction should be dismissed, with costs."

The final outcome of Gladys Berejiklian's effort to quash the ICAC findings of "serious corrupt conduct", is a lengthy Court of Appeal judgment containing reasons which once more bring the details of her conduct to the attention of the general public and includes transcript excerpts of conversations with her then "intimate" friend and fellow member of parliament.

Currently Ms Berejiklian is on the executive board of telecommunications company Singtel Optus Pty Ltd as Managing Director, Enterprise and Business.

Annual director remuneration in Singtel subsidiary companies is posited to be in the vicinity of $1 million. [Singtel Annual Report 2024, Notes to the Financial Statements For the financial year ended 31 March 2024, p.157]

Singtel Optus is a fully-owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) headquartered in Singapore and is listed in AEC political donor annual organisation returns from 1998-99 to 2022-23.

https://www.optus.com.au/about/corporate/executive-profiles

The Berejiklian-Maguire saga continues behind closed doors at NSW ICAC inquiry

Reading between the lines it seems Premier Dominic Perrottet is hoping to have a final NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption determination in the Operation Keppel Public Inquiry by October 2022, concerning former premier & former Liberal MP for Willoughby Gladys Berejiklian, so that he can create some clear air before the March 2023 state election.

Perhaps optimistically believing that state voters will forget that the stench of Liberal corruption is not just attached to the federal parliamentary branch of this political party.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July 2022:

The anti-corruption commissioner overseeing the inquiry into former premier Gladys Berejiklian’s conduct has had her term renewed for another six months in the latest extension to the high-profile probe.

Former Court of Appeal judge Ruth McColl, SC, will continue as a temporary commissioner in the investigation known as Operation Keppel until the end of October, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has confirmed.

Gladys Berejiklian was grilled before the NSW ICAC for two days last year. CREDIT:ICAC

Read the full article here.

 

As Scott Morrison draws nearer to dissolving Parliament and visiting the Governor-General the political baggage he carries becomes harder to hide

 

Former Member of the Liberal Party Michael Towke

 https://youtu.be/xRLGYiXLXuM

Former Liberal MP Julia Banks

The Guardian, 5 July 2021:

Banks also told the ABC Scott Morrison was like “menacing controlling wallpaper” during the period where she decided to leave the Liberal party after Malcolm Turnbull was deposed as prime minister.

She says she intended to stay on the backbench after Morrison took over as PM but changed her mind after he attempted to “silence” her.

“I thought if I’m to exit this parliament, I’ll exit on my own terms and under my own story and not on their terms, so I announced that I was going to become an independent.

“It was the three months of Morrison’s leadership that … was definitely the most gut-wrenching, distressing period of my entire career.”

Text Exchange Between Then Liberal Premier of New South Wales Gladys Berejiklian & A Person Understood To Be A Cabinet Minister

IMAGE: news.com.au

Deputy Prime Minister & National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce

The Guardian, 4 February 2022:

Barnaby Joyce labelled Scott Morrison “a hypocrite and a liar” in a private text message, sent before he returned to the leadership of the National party.

In another blow for the embattled prime minister, the leaked text, seen by Guardian Australia, was forwarded to the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by a third party.

In it, Joyce said he did not “get along” with Morrison.

“He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time,” Joyce said in the message, dated March last year.

“I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”

Joyce’s attack is the second time in a week private text exchanges, critical of the prime minister, have been leaked. On Tuesday, Morrison was blindsided when the Ten Network’s political editor, Peter van Onselen, used a televised question and answer session at the National Press Club to reveal private criticism of Morrison.

Van Onselen told Morrison he had a record of a text message exchange between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian in which she branded the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.

“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’,” Van Onselen said. “Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”

Van Onselen later said the conversation was between Berejiklian and a federal minister.

Outgoing Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard

NSW Liberal MLA Catherine Cusack

The Guardian, 4 April 2022:

It’s fair to say I have not seen eye to eye with Connie Fierravanti-Wells on factional issues, but I do thank her for her honesty in admitting she assisted Scott Morrison in his preselection for Cook.

More importantly I am also happy to endorse her belated character assessment of the prime minister. She was spot on.

Sadly, it’s just all come a bit late for the Liberal party. The party I joined 40 years ago and loved. The party he has ruined.

The inspirational party of Robert Menzies, whose photo today is affixed to a multitude of policies and statements that bear zero resemblance to the character and values of those tens of thousands of Australians, who formed the Liberals after the second world war, determined we would be a force for freedom, fairness, and the power of individuals – the idea that enterprise and humble ambition through hard work mattered and should make a good life for them and their families.

That’s totally what I signed up for. And that’s what has been lost in the factional model of power driven by Alex Hawke and enabled by Scott Morrison as state director when everything changed and the Liberal dream was set on this awful path that in 2022 sees ruthless self interest spill out of the party tribulations and infect flood relief public policy.

Connie said the prime minister has “lost his moral compass”. Coincidently I used those exact same words in my email to Liberal state director Chris Stone two weeks ago, saying I could no longer stomach these self-serving behaviours and I do not recognise the party I joined.

It’s a terrible situation for me personally – at the age of 58 I have invested my entire adult life in the Liberal dream only to see it trashed – and it’s not like I haven’t tried to stop it. I have given absolutely everything, sucked in a lot, tried to make it work – only to lose it all, to the ruthlessness of the wrong people in power for the wrong reasons.

The Liberal party has no interest group like trade unions (Labor) or environmentalists (Greens). No, we exist for our values and ideas only. We are member based – so Scott Morrison trashed that over two decades starting with his time as state director, then as a scheming MP and now as prime minister finding loopholes in our constitution to delay pre selections in order to get his way.

I thought forcing moderates to vote for Craig Kelly in Hughes prior to the last election was the worst. But he has outdone himself engineering a federal intervention to jump over the organisation all together. Yes, he got what he wanted – at the expense of destroying our rules-based selection system and disgusting virtually every member of the NSW division. And in the process, our president, Philip Ruddock, who used to be a highly respected party warrior, looks like a complete tool. Reputations destroyed. So many Liberals I respected including moderates complied and here we are.

The climate change fight has divided and just exhausted many of us in the NSW Liberals. And sitting here in the flood-ravaged northern rivers I can only deplore how much time has been lost.

Somehow the federal Liberal party, encouraged by the Murdoch press, has delayed the urgent need for climate change action by at least 15 years. To give you an idea as to how completely anti-intellectual and stupid this is, just read Andrew Bolt’s opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph last week saying it was “woke warmists” (climate change activists) like Tim Flannery who caused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the sort of commentary the Liberal party has indulged and wedged and tried to harness into votes. It’s appalling.

“There has been no conspiracy in my decision to speak out about Scott Morrison. Nobody puts words into my mouth”

Robert Menzies invested in the CSIRO, universities and schools, and spoke with great intellectual power about the role of education and science in powering a modern Australia. These values have been totally abandoned by the Morrison government. And I am not happy that successive NSW Liberal premiers have handed the education portfolio to the Nationals, because education is the core business of any Liberal government. Like agriculture for the Nationals and industrial relations for Labor, for us, it’s education. Our philosophy of hard work, competition and markets only works because every child has the opportunity of a first-class education. Our rhetoric falls flat on its face if education isn’t progressing. It’s who we are in terms of fairness and equity. I cannot understand how this – our most sacred core value – has been palmed off to another party. It’s all about inside deals where what we stand for and care about is now negotiable and can be bargained away. Koalas are on that list. I am so incredibly disappointed – not for myself, but for our higher duty to Australia.

So it’s been a difficult time as the ruthless “faceless men” factional power model has taken hold of the party – in my case, the NSW division. Certainly I left the moderates some years ago and standing aside from the factions was a poor career decision, but I thought I could manage to make a contribution. Many of my policy proposals including cost of living and childhood flu immunisation did get adopted and made a difference.

But Scott Morrison’s brazen attempt to fund flood victims in a Nationals seat and exclude flood victims in a Labor seat that I happen to live in was just too much. I cannot deny we are all overwrought here, witnessing so much suffering. My bullshit tolerance levels are at zero. So to see the self-serving ruthless bullying that has increased inside the Liberal party spill over into public policy and the poorest most vulnerable Australians who lost everything in the floods are the targets of this outrageous abuse of morality and power is simply intolerable. Particularly for anyone who actually understands or cares about why the Liberal party was formed in the first place and the values we are entrusted to uphold.

I spoke out expecting it would make no difference – but a Newton’s Cradle effect took hold when others across politics backed the need for fairness to flood victims. It became so embarrassing that the assistance was extended to all northern rivers victims. Of course I was surprised and happy but it seems now we are paying a second price with the prime minister refusing to engage NSW government on additional measures that are so needed for victims of this incredible disaster. It’s so bad I am moved to endorse Connie’s character assessment of the PM. “It’s my way or the highway.” For flood victims. Un-bloody-believable.

Everyone seems to find it hard to believe but I am merely a sidelined female backbench Liberal MP with a brain of my own – I have not been put up to this. I have five years left in my upper house term. No doubt they will find some other assassination of my character to dismiss my opinions rather than address the substance of what I am saying. The truth is, there has been no conspiracy in my decision to speak out about Scott Morrison. Nobody puts words into my mouth. I am what they call a “problem woman”, plus I live in the regions where we just call it out as deserved. The NSW government is not to blame for my outspokenness on this issue and punishing them for my remarks – ergo further punishing our flood victims – is yet another chapter in the disgrace of the prime minister’s approach to this flood catastrophe.

He obviously thinks it’s all about him. Actually, as anyone in the northern rivers will attest, this drama is not about him. It’s about the victims. And his inability to see that, and the compliance of his federal colleagues is further infuriating evidence the Liberal party is completely lost and adrift.

We are so lacking in compassion that even flood victims who have lost everything are like any other pawns in this awful Game of Thrones. And so we have forfeited the precious integrity and values that Australia admired and needed and that served our country so well for decades. The dumb compliance of the federal parliamentary party tells me my beloved Liberal party is beyond healing itself. I have failed and so have like-minded Liberals who understand the significance of who we are and why we even exist. Thus the task of reinventing the Liberals (if that’s even possible) has sadly defaulted to the electorate. Judgment looms. I myself cannot vote for the re-election of the federal Coalition government...... [my yellow highlighting]

The PM on 7.30 Report said I grew up at Alstonville - but I grew up on farm near Yass. Moved to Alstonville in 2000. He claimed I “made similar criticisms of Gladys” - TOTALLY UNTRUE - he just made that up.

— Catherine Cusack (@katieqs) April 6, 2022

Cartoons of the Week

 

Cathy Wilcox

John Shakespeare

David Rowe

 

A brief summary of part of Day 4 of NSW ICAC Operation Keppel's 2021 public hearings

 

“The role of the Cabinet Standing Committee on Expenditure (Expenditure Review Committee or ERC) is to assist Cabinet and the Treasurer in:

• framing the fiscal strategy and the Budget for Cabinet's consideration

• driving expenditure controls within agencies and monitoring financial performance

• considering proposals with financial implications brought forward by Ministers.

ERC is the only committee of Cabinet that can recommend any new spending or revenue proposals to Cabinet.

All spending, revenue or tax expenditure proposals by Ministers must be considered by ERC prior to final Cabinet approval unless otherwise agreed by the Premier, Deputy Premier and Treasurer…..

The Treasurer is the Chair of the ERC. The Treasurer determines the order of proceedings, and summarises the decisions made for recording by the note takers. The Secretary, Department of Premier and Cabinet, is the Secretary to the Committee. The Department of Premier and Cabinet and Treasury will provide note takers for meetings." [https://arp.nsw.gov.au/c2014-04-cabinet-standing-committee-expenditure-review-procedures-and-operational-rules-2014/]  [my yellow highlighting]

From 02 Apr 2015 to 23 Jan 2017 Liberal MP for Willoughby Gladys Berejiklian as NSW Treasurer was chair of the Estimates Review Committee of Cabinet (ERC) and from 23 Jan 2017 to 05 Oct 2021 she was Premier of New South Wales.

Ongoing evidence at Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) 2021 Operation Keppel public hearings to date confirms that the Estimates Review Committee revealed on 4 December 2016 that it had approved $5.5 million expenditure in 2016/2017 to the Office of Sports with funding sourced from the Retart NSW Fund program, Regional Growth – Environment and Tourism Fund.

The Restart NSW Fund - itself financed by way of the sale of government infrastructure or privatisation of its assets - being the responsibility of the NSW Treasurer.

At that point NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian had been chair of the ERC for approximately 20 months and based on previous evidence given by the then Liberal MLA for Wagga Wagga had been in a close personal friendship with him which began sometime between 2013-2015.

However, the bureaucratic path taken in assessment of the Australian Clay Target Association’s expanded proposal for an upgrade in sporting facilities as well as a new club & conference centre appears rather circuitous.

Apparently continuing a level of public service confusion which had marked the progression of this on-off funding request since 2012.

Indeed, by 2 January 2017 the then MLA for Wagga Wagga sent out a media release announcing the gun club funding grant before the bureaucrats had signed off on the still problematic business case.

When by midmorning of 23 January 2017 Ms. Berejiklian swopped horses, becoming NSW Premier on the retirement of Liberal MLA for Manly, Mike Baird, the Liberal Member for Epping Dominic Perrottet became NSW Treasurer and therefore the new chair of the Expenditure Review Committee (ERC).

The ACTA unresolved and unsatisfactory business case was still stumbling along on 2 April 2017 when it appears that no matter how one looked at the cost-benefit analysis of the proposal, any projected economic benefit being returned to that regional city, the Liberal-held electorate or the state as a whole, was likely to be less than the $5.5 million cost of upgrading & expanding that Wagga Wagga gun club.

By that April it had been about 4 years and 4 months since the then Liberal Member for Wagga Wagga had first written to then NSW Premier and Liberal Member for Ku-ring-gai, Barry O’Farrell, raising the subject of funding the gun club upgrade of it sporting facilities.

An ordinary person might be forgiven for thinking that by this time ACTA would have been losing support in Macquarie Street for the Olympic-level gun club and associated facilities it planned for Wagga Wagga.

However, evidence given at Operation Keppel public hearings suggest that staff members of Deputy-Premier and Liberal MLA for Monaro, John Barilario, were letting it be known that he supported the ACTA gun club proposal. Barilaro was also a member of the Executive Review Committee of Cabinet when first Berejiklian and then Perrottet chaired this committee as NSW Treasurer.

Mr. Barilaro’s staff allegedly telling at least one public servant assessing/ progressing the $5.5 million grant proposal that the gun club project was of special interest to Premier Berejiklian.

In June 2017 Regional NSW, Department of Premier and Cabinet appears to have sent the grant proposal to the Department’s Investment Appraisal Unit allegedly following a request by the Premier – there being a belief that the Premier’s Office & the Premier wanted the ACTA business case for a large clubhouse, conference facility and associated infrastructure revisited.

Across three successive NSW Coalition Governments it seem premiers and cabinet ministers have been prepared to spend an inordinate amount of public service time and money on progressing the desires of then Liberal MLA for Wagga Wagga.

To be continued......

Have NSW Premier & Liberal MP Gladys Berejiklian and Deputy Premier & Nationals MP for Monaro John Barilaro closed their ears to an earnest cross party plea to protect the residents of Ballina, Byron Bay, Clarence Valley, Kyogle, Richmond and Tweed Valley local government areas from COVID-19 infected travellers from Greater Sydney?

The question posed in the heading to this post appears to be yes - apparently neither Liberal leader Gladys Berejiklian nor National leader John Barilaro have listened to our concerns.

On or about 25 October fully vaccinated people - who as statistics demonstrate are still capable of becoming infected and infectious - will be free to travel into regional New South Wales. While from 1 December 2021 it is likely that even unvaccinated people will apparently be able to travel around the state.

Because on 27 September 2021 the NSW Premier & Liberal MP for Willoughby Gladys Berejiklian announced a three stage plan to open up the state once average full vaccination reaches 70 to 80 per cent of the total state population of those 16 years of age and older aka the ‘adult’ population.

The plan's alleged aim is that; Only fully vaccinated people and those with medical exemptions will have access to the freedoms allowed under the Reopening NSW roadmap.

At 70 per cent; Stay-at-home orders for fully vaccinated people will be lifted. Fully vaccinated residents will be allowed to have up to five people in their homes and the reopening of hospitality venues with a booking cap of 20 people per booking, retail, hairdressing and gyms will be allowed to re-open with tight density limits. This is expected to occur on or after 11 October 2021.

At 80 per cent; Fully vaccinated residents will be able to freely travel to the regions, they will be able have up to 10 people visit their home, participate in community sport, and access hospitality venues (where drinking while standing up will be allowed indoors). All premises will operate at 1 person per 4sqm indoors, and 1 person per 2sqm outdoors and, the limit of fully vaccinated guests for weddings and funerals will be lifted. Customer caps for personal services such as hairdressers will also be removed. This is expected to occur on or after 25 October 2021.

From 1 December 2021; Further changes will be introduced including all venues moving to the 2sqm rule, masks will not be required indoors at offices, indoor pools and nightclubs can reopen, and unvaccinated people will have greater freedoms. [my yellow highlighting]

The main problems with this staged plan is that: (i) a state-wide full COVID-19 vaccination average does not reliably denote a safe level of personal or local community immunity from infection, hospitalisation and/or death from this virulent disease; and (ii) not every region or local government area in NSW is likely to have reached 70 or 80 per cent of their resident population fully vaccinated by 11 to 25 October 2021.

Percentage of residents aged 15 years and over fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in North East New South Wales, according to the Australian Government Dept. of Health

As at 19 September 2021:

Ballina – 49% of a LGA ‘adult’ population of 37,124 (full resident population is est. 45,217 in 2020)

Byron Bay – 34.9% of LGA ‘adult’ population of 29,052 (full resident population is est. 35,773 in 2020)

Clarence Valley – 41.5% of LGA ‘adult’ population of 42,953 (full resident population is est. 51,730 in 2020)

Kyogle – 41.2% of LGA ‘adult’ population of 7,285 (full resident population is est. 8,788 in 2020)

Lismore – 38.5% of LGA ‘adult’ population of 35,892 (full resident population is est. 43,667 in 2020)

Richmond Valley – 41.8% of LGA ‘adult’ population of 18,938 (full resident population is est. 23,490 in 2020)

Tweed – 45% of LGA ‘adult’ population of 80,493 (full resident population is est. 98,382 in 2020)

NOTE:

*2021 LGA ‘adult’ population figures was calculated by the Australian Government based on the sreet address recorded for persons enrolled in Medicare.

**2020 resident populations estimations can be found at: https://profile.id.com.au/

BACKGROUND

NORTH COAST VOICES, FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2021

All five NE NSW Nationals, Liberal, Labor & Greens MPs ask Premier Berejiklian and Deputy-Premier Barilaro to adjust COVID-19 public health order by restricting non-essential travel to the region until it too reaches the 70% fully vaccinated target

NSW Berejiklian Government moves itself behind the veil in September 2021 as state pandemic numbers grow to record levels

THE THREE AMIGOS: Premier Berejiklian (left) Prime Minister Morrison (middle) & Deputy Premier Barilaro (right),
Architects of the 2021 NSW Delta Variant Outbreak
 IMAGE: The Northern Leader, 16.010.2019

By the last day of 2020 in News South Wales there were 4,739 recorded COVID-19 infections for that year and only 2,043 (or 43.11%) of these were due to community transmission. Total deaths with a COVID-19 diagnosis stood at 56 people.

However, as a state population we had cause to be cautiously optimistic.

We had weathered two ‘waves’ of the global pandemic – the initial one in March-April when the original SARS-CoV-2 virus began to spread and total cases passed the 3,000 mark and then later in June-September when the number of people falling ill began to climb again until the total reached 4,038 individuals.

Compared to other regions around the world infection numbers and the death toll was relatively low in proportion to the NSW population.

And the federal government had promised Australia a national vaccination program in early 2021 to be completed within six to eight months.

News South Wales is now in the last quarter of 2021.

The national vaccination program is still nowhere near complete – it is plagued by vaccine shortages, poor distribution planning and the Morrison Government's outright mismanagement. Lengthy wait time for vaccination appointments are still being experienced and eligibility for vaccination is problematic given children have been excluded for much of the roll out to date.

As of 9 September 2021 only est. 33% of the total population of 25.8 million men, women & children in Australia have been fully vaccinated. In New South Wales that percentage is still well below a safe level at an est. 42.11% fully vaccinated.

The highly infectious NSW Delta Variant Outbreak began on 16 June 2021 and, despite being initially told by members of the Berejiklian Government that this variant form was unlikely to make people as sick as the original SARS-CoV-2 strain, it was not long before public hospitals admissions began to steadily climb.

From 16 June to 9 September 2021 the Delta Variant has infected via community transmission 34,804 men, women and children in New South Wales and 162 of these people were dead.

Those particular deaths represent 74.31% of all COVID-19 related deaths in NSW since the SARS-CoV-2 virus first entered the state in January 2020.

Public hospitals have a combined total of over 1,000 COVID-19 inpatients occupying hospital beds on every day now and by 9 September the total number currently in intensive care units reached 205 very ill individuals.

The Berejiklian Government has been repeatedly warning the general public that we are going to see the rise in infection, hospitalization & deaths continue during September and October and, that the date or month the NSW Delta Variant Outbreak will peak is still uncertain.

Despite this scenario, on 10 September 2021 NSW Premier & Liberal MP for Willoughby Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced that the 11am daily government COVID-19 update press conference would cease from Monday 13 September 2021. Being replaced by a NSW Health video giving daily updates, on which the Premier & some of her Cabinet Ministers may appear from time to time.

The reason given for her personal absence from any future structured daily television appearance concerning the COVID-19 pandemic is that these daily press conferences prevent her "doing my job properly”.

This walk away from public scrutiny and accountability for the decisions made by the premier and her ministers is worrying. 

Coming as it does on the heels of the removal of a section of the NSW Health daily online media releases after 26 August 2021 (which contained the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases who had been infectious in the community and for how long), the cessation of publication of a full list of "venues of concern" known to have been frequented by infectious individuals, combined with an obvious reluctance to mention in front of television cameras the total number of fully vaccinated NSW residents who have later contracted COVID-19 and the total deaths to date in this cohort.

That a gradual contraction of the range of statistics now included in NSW Health's daily media releases is being considered has been hinted at by the Premier in recent days and, it is possible that a daily confirmed case count will disappear by the end of the year - even though it is likely epidemic levels of confirmed cases are still being recorded each day.

Such a contraction of easily accessible pandemic information would not be for the benefit of the general public. Rather a muting of information on the status of the NSW Delta Variant Outbreak would be more likely to benefit the Morrison Government, as its MPs and senators gear up for the next federal election.

This effort to move the NSW Government behind the veil and answerable to no-one also began as the Berejiklian Government commenced a staged opening up of regional New South Wales, ahead of that 70% fully vaccinated target for those between 15 years of age and over 90 years which triggers a statewide opening that is optimistically pencilled into industry diaries for sometime in October-November this year.

In New South Wales this trigger will apparently be used independently of where other states or the national average vaccinated percentage is with regard to the 70% fully vaccinated target.

One cannot avoid a suspicion that Berejiklian may have gone into 'hiding' because she has not been quite truthful with the general public about the road this Delta Variant is expected to travel and at what speed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"All of us have to start accepting that we need to live with Covid. Because Covid will be around for three or four years and it’s not practical to do everything the same [ie continue to suppress the disease]…..we have to make sure that as a government we normalise the way we do things every day…..But we also have to accept, that we all of us have to start thinking about what living with Covid really means…"  [NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian at the 11am daily government COVID-19 update press conference on 10 September 2021]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I want to welcome the New South Wales plan to reopen,” he said on Thursday. “This plan keeps the deal, keeps the faith with the people of Australia and the people of New South Wales, set out in the national plan.”  [Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook in NSW, Scott Morrison on 9 September 2021 - as quoted by columnist Laura Tingle in the Financial Review, 11 September 2021]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A new normal Friday morning in New South Wales “living with Covid”…..

DAY 87: NSW Health data showed that, as of 8pm Friday 10 September 2021, the number of locally acquired COVID-19 infections since the 16 June beginning of the Delta Variant Outbreak in NSW now totals 36,374 people - inclusive of 170 deaths. There are currently 1,164 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital, with 221 people in intensive care, 74 of whom require ventilation.

NSW recorded 1,599 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 up to 8pm.

From January 2020 to 10 September 2021 the cumulative total of COVID-19 infections from all sources had reached 42,000 cases.

The deaths up to Day 87 of the NSW Delta Variant Outbreak represent 75.22% of all NSW deaths with a COVID-19 diagnosis since the pandemic first entered Australia and the state in January 2020.

According to NSW Health a cumulative total of 1,037,036 NSW residents had been fully vaccinated by 8pm on 10 September 2021 out of an est. state population (ABS Dec 2020) of 8,172,500 men, women and children. That figure reveals that only est. 12.68% of the entire NSW population was fully vaccinated. *It should be noted that a different figure and percentage might be reached using the Australian Government’s ADF managed Operation COVID Shield data for the same period.