Residents of amalgamated councils such as Canterbury-Bankstown and Bayside are expressing anger at being trapped in hard lockdown, despite living some distance from the majority of cases.

Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock told Clinton Maynard the mergers aren’t at fault.

She pointed out far larger districts with less cases are in hard lockdown, as are small LGAs such as Burwood due to their proximity to councils with more cases.

“I don’t think you can really blame something that happened five years ago [for] the situation we’re facing today.

“It’s also the health districts: where we have large health districts … everybody is lumped in together.”

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