The head of a key lobby group for property developers has called on the New South Wales Government to reopen Sydney construction sites after the chief health officer in that state acknowledged that she had not given specific guidance to suggest that the Greater Sydney construction sector should be closed.

Urban Taskforce chief executive officer Tom Forest has called on the NSW Government to reconsider its two-week ban on construction sites operating throughout Greater Sydney.

Introduced last weekend, the ban came into force on Monday.

Under the new restrictions, work on construction sites is banned throughout Greater Sydney apart from a limited range of tasks (see link) until at least July 30.

Whilst the government has claimed the decision was based upon health advice, NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant has advised that she did not provide specific advice in regard to the shutdown of construction.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Chant said she had not provided specific advice on which industries and sectors would be targeted by health orders but stressed the need to reduce workplace attendance and reduce the opportunity for workplace interactions overall.

Whilst health authorities could define public health objective, how this played out for individual sectors remained for the government to decide.

“Our objectives of decreasing workplace attendances, decreasing the opportunity for interactions, is what we need to achieve. The matter for how that is done is really a matter for broader government,” Chant said, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Clearly we’re not the experts in logistic chains and other things and so we need that whole of government approach to determine what things are critical, what things are not.”

According, to Forrest, this shows that there is no need for the sector to be locked down.

“From the very start, the Berejiklian Government has been praised for basing all decisions relating to COVID-19 on health advice,” he said.

“Today, the NSW Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kerry Chant, supported by the Minister for Health, Brad Hazzard, confirmed that this was a decision taken by Ministers.

“This decision will cost the economy billions of dollars and is already costing hundreds of thousands of Greater Sydney families their livelihoods. The closure of construction sites flows through the entire economy.

“This hasty decision taken on the weekend, without consultation with the industry, wreaks of a government in panic following their indecision and lax attitude to the Eastern Suburbs Delta strain outbreak. It is now clear that the closedown of construction in NSW is a political over-reach following pressure from journalists at the media conference last Thursday.

“There is simply no published evidence to support the decision to close down the entire construction industry – 100%.  There is certainly no health advice – based on what Dr Kerry Chant said today.”

The latest advice comes as NSW recorded 98 new COVID cases on Monday.

Of these, 20 were in the community whilst infectious whilst a further seventeen were in the community for some of their infectious period.

During the press conference, Berijiklian acknowledged the impact upon the sector’s workforce but said the decision had been made amid a need to reduce mobility and reduce the chances of workers getting the virus, spreading it to their colleagues and bringing it home.

Forrest, however, said the decision to include the sector in the lockdowns had been politically motived.

He said the industry had undertaken extensive effort to make work sites safe.

“Construction worksites are more secure than hospitals,” Forrest said.

“All workers are identified at the entry and are logged onto site. Construction worksite staff are required to safe social distance (with reduced workforces as required).  Face masks, hand sanitiser, QR code check-ins, temperature checks (on large work sites), staggered start times, morning tea breaks, lunch breaks, and finish times are already in place.

“All construction sites have daily “tool-box talks” to talk about safety management on site. Further, most of their work is outdoors.

“The NSW Health exposure sites web page shows that negligible transmission has occurred on construction sites.  Why has the construction sector been targeted in NSW?

“Today we found out that the reason was a political one. The Urban Taskforce will continue to work constructively with the NSW Government to safely re-open construction sites as soon as possible.”