Ruby Princess inquest: Guests disembarking when COVID test mistake made
A Border Force official only misinterpreted flu test results for COVID-19 swabs after Ruby Princess passengers had already started disembarking in Sydney, the federal government says.
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The federal government has denied allowing the Ruby Princess permission to dock in Sydney amid the coronavirus pandemic, adding an Australian Border Force official only misinterpreted flu tests after passengers had already started disembarking the cruise ship.
Last week the ABC reported a senior ABF officer allowed 2,700 people to leave the notorious vessel after he mistook negative influenza test results for negative COVID-19 swab results.
But the Australian Government Solicitor says none of the ABF officers inspecting the liner at Circular Quay on March 19 had authority to grant it permission to berth.
“To the extent that the reporting suggests that ABF officers were responsible for making a decision to allow passengers to disembark and did so on the basis of misinterpreted test results, that inference should be rejected,” the AGS wrote in a statement to an inquiry investigating the debacle.
“The ABF officer the subject of the reporting provided immigration and customs clearance in respect of the vessel, not biosecurity clearance.”
The AGF added that “contrary to the tenor of some of the reporting,” information about test results was not provided to the ABF until after the conclusion of its customs and immigrations checks and after the Ruby Princess began letting guests leave.
The federal government has accepted that the ABF officer misinterpreted the test results emailed to him by a Carnival port agent, but stressed this had no bearing on passengers being permitted to disembark or the granting of permission to dock.
“The ABF officer had no biosecurity role to play in those matters and the provision of the information about the test results did not occur until after passengers commenced disembarking,” AGS said.
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NSW Health had already deemed the ship a low biosecurity risk, meaning state government officials were not mandated to board the vessel and conduct extensive screening before giving the green light for disembarkation.
That’s despite pending coronavirus swabs for 13 sick passengers.
The federal government has admitted that clearance to disembark or ‘pratique’ was at least informally granted.
“Although pratique appears not to have been formally granted before disembarkation, clearly passengers were permitted to disembark in advance of that occurring and no biosecurity officers sought to prevent passengers from disembarking,” the federal government’s July 16 voluntary statement to the inquiry said.
“In that sense, there was a practical granting of pratique to allow passengers to depart.”
The scandal has been linked to some 700 infections and 21 deaths nationwide.
Commissioner Bret Walker SC is expected to deliver his final report later this month.