New South Wales premier Gladys Berejikian wasnât getting off lightly during a press round on Tuesday morning after it was revealed she took a COVID-19 test last Tuesday, but didnât self-isolate till she received her negative result 90 minutes later.
During an interview with the âTodayâ show, Berejiklian was grilled by host Karl Stefanovic, who asked her to admit she âbroke the NSW rulesâ that require all residents who get tested to self-isolate until results come in.
âYouâre in trouble again. Whatâs going on?â Stefanovic quizzed the premier.
Berejiklian said she was ânot in troubleâ and that she didnât have any COVID-like symptoms but got tested as an âabundance of cautionâ on NSW Budget day when her âvoice was starting to goâ.
âI didnât change my schedule. I accepted that, they came, they gave me the test and it came back negative and itâs just my larynx, literally my voice,â she said.
âSo to be clear, did you attend any meetings or interact with anyone while you were waiting for the test results?â Stefanovic pressed on.
âAs I said Karl, I didnât change my schedule. I canât tell you exactly what I did, I canât remember,â the premier responded, saying she made sure to practice social distancing and hand sanitisation.
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But Stefanovic wasnât going to let her off the hook.
âThereâs nothing wrong with saying you had meetings,â he told her.
âOh look, I very well could have. Even if there wasnât a scheduled meeting, people come and go all the time,â she replied, adding it had been a long year.
âIt has been a long year, but you did break your own rules. You did break NSW health rules,â said Stefanovic, before letting her speak and then insisting again, âBut Premier, you broke the rulesâ.
âLook, thatâs all down to interpretation. I took a test which I really didnât need to but I wanted to and perhaps in that time frame I shouldâve shut my door and not let anyone in,â she admitted.
Stefanovic then encouraged the premier to officially apologise, saying, âI donât think thereâs anything wrong with you saying, âLook the rules were there, I got on with it, I broke them, Iâm very sorry, letâs get on with lifeââ.
Berejiklian said she had given âthe factsâ before confessing, âin hindsight I shouldâve closed my door and not had anything to do with anybody but I didnât because it all happened so fast and it was Budget day. I thought I was doing the right thing because I was being overly cautious.â
During an interview with ABCâs breakfast show, Berejiklian was also put on the spot by host Lisa Millar.
âBut the question is, are you going to change the guidelines?â asked Millar, to which the premier replied, âAbsolutely not. Why would I change the guidelines?â
âBecause youâre not following them,â said the ABC presenter.
NSW has had no unlinked community transmission of COVID-19 for 31 days. Health authorities said on Tuesday that no local cases had been reported in the past 24 hours, and that six cases were reported in overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.
The border between NSW and Victoria opened on Monday after four months while Queenslandâs premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared Tuesday she will finally open her border to Greater Sydney from Tuesday of next week.
Victoria said on Tuesday it had zero active cases of coronavirus for the first time in more than eight months. The state accounts for more than 73% of the countryâs total virus cases and 90% of national deaths.
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