Anna Caldwell: How NSW almost became a Victoria-style disaster
It’s extraordinary how close NSW came to a Victoria-style quarantine disaster — and even more amazing that we are only now learning just how great our escape was, writes Anna Caldwell.
Opinion
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The Premier says it’s a “miracle” that it has taken until this week for us to learn of a case of COVID being contracted in NSW hotel quarantine.
Uncomfortably, Gladys Berejiklian was in fact more correct than she realised when she made the remark, because in the hours that followed it was revealed that there have in fact been serious protocol breaches in NSW hotel quarantine, which she herself astoundingly was not aware of until Wednesday night.
For months, we’ve listened as the Premier and police have announced in intricate detail the fines issued to regular folk on an almost daily basis for breaching COVID protocol.
Remember back when you couldn’t lie on the grass by yourself outdoors without worrying if you might be slapped with an infringement notice by an over-zealous officer driving his car off-road through an inner city park?
We certainly were all in it together. And what makes memories of that whole period especially galling is that we have learned this week is just how close NSW came to disaster.
While we all tut-tutted Melbourne for the bungled hotel quarantine management down south, it turns out that back in April and May we here in NSW came close to having our very own Hotel Danifornia.
NSW Police have confirmed on May 13 one security company which had been hired to assist police with the operations was caught illegally subcontracting services.
An investigation began within 24 hours and a fine was issued to the company on July 3.
The contract was terminated.
A second possible breach was identified on April 2.
An investigation is still ongoing — almost five months later — with no fine issued.
Stunningly, Berejiklian confirmed on Thursday she only learnt of these incidents on Wednesday night after the were exposed by the media.
The breaches had been uncovered through audits, and the contracts terminated.
Berejiklian praised the police for taking immediate action.
“I’m incredibly pleased the police did what they were there to do. They saw something wasn’t right … they sacked one company and they fined another one … They are part of the secret of our success in NSW in dealing with the pandemic,” the Premier said.
The police should be praised for catching the problem.
But it should still cause us all concern that such a significant mistake happened in the first place, which could have undermined the entire operation.
Hotel quarantine has been the very linchpin of our entire battle in the COVID war.
It is the first and last line of defence against incoming cases of the virus.
So critical has it been to stopping the spread, we have also put the program in place for returned traveller from Victoria.
In short, we don’t need miracles when it comes to hotel quarantine working as it should. We need it to be a military-style operation.
This week we also learnt that a separate hotel quarantine security guard who contracted the virus was working a second job.
The man, who contracted the virus from a return overseas traveller while working at the Marriott Hotel in Circular Quay also worked at the Flemington market and a Parramatta courthouse.
This was the context in which Berejiklian evoked the miracle line: “Can I make this point very clear? It’s actually been a miracle that we haven’t had anyone contract the virus in that setting before,” she said.
“We’ve welcomed from overseas around 48,000 Australians. We also know that 2000 people in NSW have acquired the disease from overseas. So it’s been a tremendous effort that we haven’t had a case yet.”
Berejiklian was asked repeatedly on Wednesday why these guards are allowed to work two jobs and she dismissed the concern.
She said that logic — the idea that anyone working in hotel quarantine shouldn’t have a second job — if followed through would see police officers or health workers in the system prevented from going shopping or to restaurants.
“We have to accept that there are jobs now in the community that are high risk, and that’s a reality,” the Premier said.
“But you also can’t say to somebody, if you work in a particular environment, you know, you can’t go to a restaurant, you can’t go shopping.”
The Premier is wrong here.
Hotel quarantine staff are not just “somebody”. Working a second job is not just “going shopping”.
These are the people being put at the very frontline of our defence against incoming cases of the virus.
In fact, we reached a point earlier in the year where hotel quarantine staff appeared more likely than anyone else in the community to be the first person in the vicinity of multiple cases of the virus.
Labor saw the problem this week and called for the guards to be paid more so that they don’t need to work a second job and therefore put others at risk. The same theory goes for a better deal in order to prevent subcontracting.
“Anyone in those places, they should be there full-time and not doing multiple other jobs. We need our hotel quarantine system to stand up as our last line of defence,” Opposition health spokesman Ryan Park said.
NSW was found to hold the bulk of the blame for the Ruby Princess debacle, despite Berejiklian insisting it was Canberra’s fault.
We cannot afford another Ruby Princess-style debacle out of hotel quarantine.
These issues must be thrashed out publicly, not kept secret for months on end with even the Premier in the dark on breaches caught out.
It’s been very easy for NSW to take the high ground and claim superiority in our management of COVID-19, because our case loads have spoken for themselves versus chaotic Victoria.
We are right to praise the police and the health workers for this, but the same doesn’t go for miracles.
We’ve dodged some major mishaps in this state and can’t afford to let our guard down.