NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has accepted the resignation from cabinet of Arts Minister Don Harwin, who fled Sydney for his holiday home to escape the coronavirus crisis.
He was been fined $1000 by NSW Police for relocating from Elizabeth Bay to Pearl Beach on the Central Coast “in contravention of a current ministerial direction”.
Mr Harwin was ordered by the Premier to return to his primary residence on Thursday and announced his resignation on Friday evening.
“There is nothing more important than the work of the government in fighting the coronavirus crisis,” Mr Harwin said in a statement on Friday evening.
“I will not allow my circumstances to be a distraction from that work and I very much regret that my residential arrangements have become an issue during this time.”
Mr Harwin said he’d sought at all times to act in accordance with public health orders and “remains confident” he had done so.
But he also acknowledged that “perception is just as important during these times”.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in a statement that Mr Harwin had “appropriately resigned from cabinet”.
“The police, who have been tasked by my government with enforcing these health orders, came to the conclusion that Minister Harwin breached the order,” the Liberal leader said on Friday evening.
“While Minister Harwin has served the people of NSW well, and he continues to assure me that he did not break the rules, the orders in place apply equally to everybody.”
The minister earlier this week said he’d been mostly living on the Central Coast for four months for health reasons.
“I live in a very built-up area in Sydney with high density and here I have windows that can open so I can have the fresh air and I can walk in fresh air and I have more room in my house here than I would have in my small apartment,” he told the Daily Telegraph in Pearl Beach.
The NSW Police commissioner has previously said people should be in lockdown at their primary residences to prevent regional hospitals from potentially becoming overwhelmed with sick city-dwellers.
Officials across the world who have been reprimanded for flouting self-isolation rules and reprimanded including Scotland’s chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood and New Zealand Health Minister David Clark.
-with AAP
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