The Guardian : Apr 10, 2020, 02:22 PM
Canberra: A minister in the New South Wales government has been fined $1,000 after staying at his Central Coast holiday home and breaching a coronavirus public health order.The arts minister, Don Harwin, was spotted earlier this week at his million-dollar Pearl Beach house which is more than an hour’s drive from his east Sydney primary residence.The NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, said police would investigate, alleging there was photographic evidence of another person in the holiday home.Officers spoke with the 55-year-old on Thursday and fined him after they were alerted to the fact he had relocated to the Pearl Beach holiday home “in contravention of current ministerial direction under the Public Health Act,” NSW police said in a statement.Fuller said no individual or corporation was above the Covid-19 laws.The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, had defied calls to sack the MP and said she would wait for police to first establish the facts.She told Harwin on Thursday to return to his Sydney apartment – acknowledging the “perception is horrible”.Berejiklian was adamant Harwin didn’t break the rules because he relocated on 13 March before state Covid-19 regulations came into effect on 17 March.