Hotel quarantine inquiry: Unified Security says it doesn't know why it secured $44m deal
It wasn’t on the Victorian Government’s preferred supplier list, but Unified Security sealed a $44m deal to guard the state’s quarantine hotels. Yet the firm says it can’t explain why.
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The security company paid $44 million to guard Victoria’s quarantine hotels says it does not know why it scored the lion’s share of the work as part of the botched scheme.
Unified Security had just 89 permanent staff in March but ended up employing 1759 people, almost all through subcontractors.
It won the majority of the security work, despite not being on the state government’s preferred supplier list.
The bureaucrat who first approached Unified, Katrina Currie, revealed in emails one consideration was that Unified was indigenous-owned, making it suitable under the Andrews government’s inclusion policies.
Unified’s Victorian manager Nigel Coppick told the hotel quarantine inquiry on Thursday that he did not know why the company was awarded substantially more than other key contractors Wilson and MSS.
“I was contacted and I was asked if we could support,’’ he told counsel assisting the inquiry, Rachel Ellyard.
The inquiry, chaired by former judge Jennifer Coate, also heard:
MS Currie, who worked for the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions, told Unified that “both the Australian Defence Force and Victoria Police would be involved in the program”;
UNIFIED was initially hired on March 28 to provide 40 guards, but had to deliver 200 guards by 5am the next day;
THE company supplied personal protective equipment to hotel staff and departmental employees due to a lack of supplies, and billed the DJPR;
THE DHHS did not provide official PPE usage guidance to Unified until May 12 — some six weeks after the program started and after the quarantine breaches at the Rydges and Stamford Plaza hotels, which seeded 99 per cent of Victoria’s deadly second wave;
UNIFIED was asked to do non-security work, including buying and transporting a van load of toys worth $5000 from Toyworld at Docklands on an account setup by the DJPR;
A COVID-positive guest was inadvertently allowed to check out of his room on May 23 and have his belongings loaded into a taxi before an authorised officer realised he should not be leaving; and
MSS Security, which had 17 subcontractors infected by the coronavirus, did not know the Stamford Plaza hotel had COVID-positive guests until some of its guards fell ill.
MSS Security’s Victorian general manager, Jamie Adams, told the inquiry that Ms Currie, who previously gave evidence that she did not know of subcontracting arrangements, actually “had no issue with us using subcontracted staff”.
“She mentioned that the hotel quarantine program was all part of providing work for people who had been stood down due to COVID-19.’’
The inquiry heard six subcontractors to Unified working at Rydges had contracted COVID-19, including one tested the same day as the first Rydges hotel worker who fell ill.
One, “Guard Six”, tested negative on May 29, but positive on June 7.
Unified said it did not know how the guards had contracted COVID-19, but that Guard Six had a flatmate who worked as a Uber driver, who also tested positive.
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Originally published as Hotel quarantine inquiry: Unified Security says it doesn't know why it secured $44m deal