Broken Hill Mayor Darriea Turley urged Health Minister Brad Hazzard to commit to more support for health services in the Far West when he made a flying visit to the region in September.

Cr Turley said local COVID-19 contact tracers were struggling to keep up.

Addressing Hazzard via ABC Radio, she said: “Please bring some relief for these staff. And please make sure you review essential travel, and you review regional travel.

“To come from a hotspot, two hotspots, and travel around – lovely of the minister, but please bring a cheque.”

Cr Turley later told a parliamentary inquiry that the spread of the virus in overcrowded housing in the Far West should have been planned for, given how well known the problem was.

She said decades of underfunding for health and housing services in Aboriginal communities had laid the groundwork for the crisis.

“The deep cuts to funding, the disrespect these communities are being shown, the lack of planning, has made them vulnerable,” she said.

Central Darling Shire administrator Bob Stewart told The Australian that the Wilcannia outbreak had “led to emergency management scrambling to find solutions to a long-term legacy issue”.

“It represents a massive failure of government over many years to address the basic human right of shelter, despite the warning signs contained in various reports and submissions,” Stewart said.