The helicopter appeared over popular Gordon’s Bay on Sunday when 18C winter temperatures drew hundreds of people to Sydney’s beaches in breach of orders that permit travel only for essential reasons or limited exercise.
The police tactics, which followed a large show of force in the centre of the city on Saturday to ward off anti-lockdown protestors, drew condemnation on social media platforms, with some comparing the police measures to what might be seen in North Korea.
Others said the video demonstrated that those living in Sydney’s wealthy, seaside eastern suburbs were flouting lockdown rules — while those at the centre of the Delta variant outbreak in Sydney’s poorer outer southwest were being subjected to even harsher stay-at-home orders.
Sydney is in its sixth week of lockdown following the appearance of the Delta variant mid-June. The lockdown has since been extended until at least the end of this month.
One video shared online showed beachgoers hurriedly packing up and fleeing as the police helicopter’s loudhailers warned that other officers were approaching.
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“Will everyone congregating in Gordon’s Bay please move on,” the police helicopter broadcast. “The local police have been notified and will be attending shortly. Anyone breaching the public health order will be issued a fine.”
Commenters complained that those living in the outer, less wealthy suburbs were often not offered the same warning by police. One person wrote on social media: “Is this Sydney or North Korea?”
Others were more sympathetic to the police tactics. One wrote: “I could never work out why there are so many infectious people in the community after five weeks in lockdown . . . I get it now.”
Police, aided by 300 troops, have bolstered lockdown compliance measures after a violent anti-lockdown protest in central Sydney nine days ago led to 57 arrests.
On Saturday, with another protest threatened, more than 1,500 police swarmed the centre of the city and set up roadblocks in a show of force. The protest did not occur.
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Sydney recorded more than 200 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday and its 15th death since the outbreak began in June.
Glady Berejiklian, the New South Wales premier, pleaded with Sydney’s 5.5 million residents on Monday to get vaccinated and follow the city’s stay-at-home orders. “I can’t stress that enough — it is really in our hands as to how we deal with the cases coming down as a community but also our rate of vaccinations,” she said.
Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, has set a vaccination target of 80 per cent before Australia can reopen its borders and dispense with lockdowns. In March last year Australia took the unprecedented step of almost entirely closing its borders to foreign visitors and banning citizens from leaving.
Sixteen months and several lockdowns later, there are about six million Australians under stay-at-home orders — mostly in Sydney — as the authorities try to return to “Covid zero”.
As of Sunday, 41 per cent of Australians aged 16 and above had received their first dose and 19 per cent had received their second.
