The NSW Government needs to immediately lift the 9pm to 5am curfew in force in Georges River, Bayside and the other 10 locked down Local Government Areas in Sydney.
This curfew is creating a perception there are 'two Sydney's' developing, where the residents in Sydney's south and west are hit with a harder lockdown while the rest of Sydney is treated differently.
At her press conference on August 10, Premier Berejiklian was asked about curfews. She said, 'If we thought that they would have a significant or even marginal impact, of course we would do those things, but there is no evidence to suggest that is the case'.
And yet just 10 days later the NSW Government introduced a curfew for the people living in Sydney's 12 local government areas of concern.
Let me be clear, the NSW Opposition has been bipartisan in supporting measures backed by the health advice. However, the when it comes to the implementation of curfews, it is arbitrary. It's time for these measures to be removed.
Curfews also have had a disproportionate impact on shift workers including frontline health workers, and are causing further unnecessary anxiety for our community in St George.
The restrictions have not been felt evenly across Greater Sydney. Livelihoods have been lost, businesses closed, people put under serious financial stress.
We are in week 11 of lockdown with many more weeks to come - and then a long, slow road back to recovery for many businesses and families who have lost so much.
It's why we have also been calling for further and specific economic survival and recovery measures that show an appreciation of just how hard hit many of these communities are.
