NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has urged her state and territory counterparts to ensure lockdowns and border closures are the “last option” in fighting inevitable COVID cases and outbreaks.
Ms Berejiklian has long been an ardent opponent of the border closures, and promised she would not lock down the state again.
“You can’t just keep shutting and opening borders willy-nilly,” she told Sky News.
“I hope people don’t overreact because we are going to get cases, we are going to get outbreaks”.
The premier said the states and territories now have the resources to “get on top of” outbreaks as soon as possible which negates the need to see lockdowns as “the first option”.
“They should be the last option”.
New South Wales has been able to ensure that there is a “line of defence” before needing to look at the “horrible alternative” of shutting down borders and economies.
“That’s the last thing we want to see. We want to make sure that that is the last option not the first option and I just ask my colleagues in other states and territories to consider that as well.”