New South Wales (NSW) Premier Dominic Perrottet is standing by his decision to keep the state open during the Omicron outbreak, despite facing ongoing criticism of his government’s approach to handling the pandemic, which some feared could undermine the premier’s bid to retain seats at the recent by-election.
The Liberal-National Coalition government looks set to lose its bid for the multicultural electorate of Strathfield in Sydney, and the South Coast seat of Bega to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) over the weekend’s “Super Saturday” by-elections where four seats were up for grabs.
Perrottet said the government will reflect and learn from “some disappointing results across the board,” but maintained that his approach to COVID-19 restrictions would not change.
“Going into lockdowns may be popular, but it is not right,” he told Liberal supporters in Strathfield on Saturday.
“We need to keep businesses open. We need to keep people in work.”
On Sunday, he added that “there are certainly lessons to be taken from the particularly disappointing result in Bega, but by-elections are notoriously hard for governments.”
The Coalition government will be pushed further into the minority if they do in fact lose Bega and will need to rely more heavily on votes from independent MPs. However, Perrottet said the prospect did not worry him and that the Liberals were “certainly not going to be doing any deals” with MPs from other parties.
“For the last three years we have been in a minority government situation,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Monday.
“I’m not interested in doing deals, I’m interested in working through issues and working with the crossbench where there are legitimate areas of policy that we can work with them on we will.”
The official results will be postponed until March 11 with about 38 percent of votes counted in Bega, Monaro, Strathfield and Willoughby before Saturday’s ballots.
The seat of Strathfield is expected to claim by the ALP’s Jason Yat-sen Li, who led Liberal candidate Bridget Sakr 42.54 percent to 37.37 percent as of Feb. 14. But Perrottet on Saturday said Labor’s electorate vote had “gone backwards” and was confident voters would elect Sakr at the next state poll.
Meanwhile, Labor’s candidate Michael Holland looks set to win Bega, which has been held by retiring Liberal member Andrew Constance since 2003. Constance is now pursuing a career in federal politics.
Perrottet conceded that the local community in Bega “felt abandoned” after the 2019-20 historic bushfires.
“I think there’s a lot more work we need to do there,” the NSW premier said.
Labor did not contest Willoughby.
