There’s been plenty of confusion in every local community about exactly what the latest Public Health Order means for people in Newcastle and the Hunter.
You can still only leave your home for a reasonable excuse which include:
- obtain food or other goods and services locally
- leave home to go to work if
- you cannot reasonably work from home and
- the business is allowed to be open
- leave home for education if it is not possible to do it at home
- exercise and take outdoor recreation
- go out for medical or caring reasons, including obtaining a COVID-19 vaccination
- donate blood
- access childcare
- continue existing arrangements for access to, and contact between, parents and children
- attend a funeral or memorial service that complies with the rules for funerals and memorial services
- provide care or assistance (including personal care) to a vulnerable person or to provide emergency assistance
- only one person may visit a residence to provide care at any one time
- access social services, employment services, services provided to victims (including as victims of crime), domestic violence services, and mental health services
- move to a new place of residence, or between your different places of residence or inspecting a potential new place of residence within regional or rural NSW
- undertake legal obligations
- avoid injury or illness or to escape the risk of harm
- in case of emergencies
- for compassionate reasons, including where 2 people are in a relationship but do not necessarily live together
- to provide pastoral care if you are a priest, minister of religion or member of a religious order
- gathering at Parliament for the purpose of its normal operations.
You must stay within your Local Government Area.
If you need to go into a neighbouring LGA, you can only go 5 kilometres into that LGA from your home.
Always have ID on you that has proof of address and carry a face mask at all times.
Shadow Minister for the Hunter, and Swansea MP Yasmin Catley said really the rules are simple.
“Of course in very remote areas in NSW it might be difficult to work within those parameters and I have no doubt that if they spoke to the authorities they would be able to get exemptions,” she said.
“The rules are that you can go anywhere within your Local Government Area,”
“In most instances it [5 kilometre rule] would only affect people who are living along the border or very close to the border so I’m at Swansea so I’m not close to any of the borders so I stay within the Local Government Area of Lake Macquarie as simple as that,” said Yasmin Catley.
For more information and full details head to the NSW Health website: https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/rules/affected-regions?fbclid=IwAR1a1BG1Ko5-INb-gEA3Sf7Zs8H7W1ChujLjF39enN3Ob-jWU3ku1kOvtu0#stay-at-home-rules
Image credit: Yasmin Catley MP Facebook