Dominic Perrottet acknowledged that enforcing vaccination mandates during the Covid pandemic was a “mistake.”
The former NSW premier made the startling admission during his final speech to parliament on Tuesday, in which he also warned that ministers should not be “passengers in public service”.
The former Liberal leader highlighted how vaccine mandates forced frontline workers such as police, firefighters and health care workers to leave their jobs, putting even more pressure on already understaffed services.
“Health authorities and governments acted with the right intentions to stop the spread. But if the impact of vaccines on transmission was limited at best, as is now largely accepted, the law should have left more room and respect for freedom,” Perrottet said.
“Ultimately, the mandates were wrong. People’s personal decisions should not have cost them their jobs.”
Mr Perrottet said he tried to get rid of the mandates as quickly as he could when he took over as premier from Gladys Berejiklian following her sudden resignation in September 2021, just days before Sydney’s three-month lockdown ended.
However, he acknowledged that vaccine rules should have been lifted more quickly.
Elsewhere in the speech, Mr Perrottet bizarrely described himself as the “political love child” of former prime ministers John Howard and Paul Keating and said the Coalition under his leadership had “reshaped our city and state… and laid the foundations for a promising future”.
Former NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet (pictured during his farewell speech on Tuesday) has admitted that Covid vaccine mandates during the pandemic were a “mistake”
Mr. Perrottet highlighted how vaccine mandates forced a number of frontline workers, including police officers, firefighters and health care workers, to leave their jobs, further straining industries that were already short of staff.
“For more than 12 years, our government has adopted a Bradfield-like approach to governing,” he said.
The Coalition spent 12 years in power before losing the 2023 state election, prompting Perrottet to step down as leader.
Mr Keating was one of many notable politicians in the public gallery watching Mr Perrottet’s speech.
Mr Perrottet praised Mr Keating for helping him understand “the power of imagination in politics” despite being on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
“He also told me once, ‘Dom, I had to teach my bastards to care about money and you have to teach your bastards to care about people,'” he said.
Mr Perrottet also thanked Mr Howard for being a “constant source of wisdom”.
He saved his greatest gratitude for his wife Helen, mother of his six children.
“I have never appreciated or thanked you enough for the sacrifices you have made for our family and for putting your own career on hold to support me in mine,” Perrottet said.
‘You carried the mental load at home, regularly working late into the night at your legal job as a major in the ADF, long after the children had gone to bed and up long before they were awake.
“You have made so many sacrifices with so much love and selfless care over all these years. I can now understand why you seemed so happy during my concession speech on election night.”
As he concluded his 13 years in politics, Mr Perrottet thanked his wife Helen (pictured) for making “so many sacrifices with so much selfless love and care”.
The former prime minister also shared five “lessons” from his 13 years in government.
“What I have learned is that the real opposition in government is not ‘the Opposition’, it is the status quo,” he said.
Mr Perrottet also urged his political peers not to be afraid to challenge bureaucrats to ensure they do not end up as “a hamster on the wheel of some government department”.
“Ministers must also be persistent and determined in holding the public sector to account for implementing reforms, because even simple ideas can face immense resistance,” he said.
Mr Perrottet announced last month that he would leave his political career to work for the mining company BHP in the United States.
“Politics is about conquering the future, and that is achieved by having ideas. May the best ideas win,” he concluded his speech.