Singing and dancing in crowded houses will be allowed and commuters won’t have to wear masks in NSW from next week.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the changes on Wednesday alongside Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, who declared the state was “pretty much back to normal”.
Masks won’t be mandatory in any setting from Monday.
Big weddings and funerals are back – with no cap on numbers from Monday – while dancing and singing will be allowed in any environment, including religious settings.
“You’ll be able to have as many people in your home as you can,” Ms Berejiklian said.
The premier emphasised the importance of using the QR check-in system, warning the government would be stepping up compliance.
Meanwhile, the body charged with oversight of the state government says people in NSW hotel quarantine have not had a clear avenue to make complaints despite having legitimate concerns about their treatment and health.
The NSW Ombudsman says the state government also initially ignored calls for extraordinary pandemic-era powers to be subjected to oversight.
The watchdog said the COVID-19 pandemic exposed flaws of the state’s complaints system when it comes to a crisis.
The ombudsman received 900 complaints relating to COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, it revealed in a report titled ‘2020 Hindsight’.
More than half related to hotel quarantine, including the conditions of hotel facilities, inadequate food options, access to mental health and other medical assistance, and a lack of access to fresh air.
People held in quarantine in NSW are not routinely given access to fresh air and outdoor exercise, contrary to the minimum standards laid out by the United Nations.
NSW Police told the ombudsman they chose hotels for quarantine based primarily on security considerations, leading them to favour high-rise buildings which often don’t have opening windows or balconies.
The ombudsman says now the initial urgency of the pandemic has subsided, police should think about giving people access to fresh air.
The watchdog is limited in how it can respond to the hundreds of complaints it received because of how many agencies are involved in hotel quarantine.
While it has oversight of NSW Health, it does not have power to review police actions. Private security and other contractors are also not subject to its scrutiny, the report states.
That means there is no single independent oversight body for people in hotel quarantine to raise concerns with.
“The response to COVID-19 involves multiple agencies across multiple layers of government (state and federal), working sometimes in close partnership, sometimes in loose alignment, and sometimes separately,” acting NSW Ombudsman Paul Miller said in a statement.
“In contrast, oversight and complaint avenues are highly fragmented, and it can be extremely difficult for the public to navigate their way to the right body who can resolve their complaint quickly and effectively.”
The watchdog says it did not receive a response when it first wrote to the NSW government on March 17, 2020, alerting it to the need for oversight if public agencies were going to be exercising extraordinary powers.
The ombudsman received no notice that quarantine would become mandatory on March 28.
The NSW police watchdog and Commonwealth Ombudsman were also in the dark on “key details” like the legal framework governing the detention of people for quarantine, the process for designating quarantine facilities, and the list of quarantine facilities.
The Department of Premier and Cabinet advised the ombudsman last week that it would hold talks with the agencies involved in quarantine.
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