NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has withheld documents provided by Dr Kerry Chant about the Greater Sydney lockdown.
Tension was high at a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday, as Hazzard and Chant were questioned over NSW’s growing outbreak management.
Yesterday, 356 new local cases were tallied up, continuing the state’s catastrophic trend of record-breaking numbers.
Committee members at the inquiry asked Dr Chant to provide the precise date that she gave Hazzard advice, regarding the Greater Sydney lockdown.
She replied that the formal advice was given in writing on June 25, to the NSW crisis cabinet.
This was the same day that stay-at-home orders were announced.
However, when asked to publicly provide these documents, Hazzard emphatically refused to do so.
How suspicious!
Why would Dr Chant need to front a parliamentary inquiry when Brad Hazzard can mansplain for her??#auspol #covid19nsw #covid19aus pic.twitter.com/nezMVswyCE
— Squizz (@SquizzSTK) August 10, 2021
Hazzard informed the committee that: “Dr Chant is under oath, and she’s giving you the evidence, which is quite clear, so she won’t be providing any documents.”
What the hell, Brad? Just give us the damn documents!
The two-week lockdown, announced on June 25, was directly related to one particular super-spreader event: a party in Western Sydney where 27 punters got infected and passed it on to close contacts.
i think we can all agree that this is a terrible effort at public health communication from brad hazzard
— casey briggs (@CaseyBriggs) August 7, 2021
NSW Premier Gladys Berajikilian has continuously said that the state government acted on health advice provided by Chant and her team. However, Hazzard’s answers yesterday seemed to go against this.
“I think it’s fair to say that what happens in the crisis cabinet is a really healthy discussion, because Dr Chant actually presents epidemiological advice and then there has to be discussions,” Hazzard said.
“I actually do what a minister should do and that is to obviously listen to the advice, challenge all the underpinning aspects of whatever is being asked to be done, if it has implications for mental health, for the economy, for all of those other things.”
What’s really going on, guys?
