COVID-19 Gold Coast: Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler dismisses hotel quarantine crisitism

Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler responds to staff complaints about quarantine hotel duty.

WE’RE in the midst of a pandemic and keeping COVID-19 out of Queensland and from spreading across Queensland of course is a priority.

In terms of the quarantine hotel program I’m not going to comment directly on the exact numbers of police that we have there at any given moment, and that’s for operational security reasons. But what I would say is we are certainly balancing our business-as-usual requirements with our COVID-19 response and this is not unique to the Gold Coast. This is an issue that is confronting the whole state and probably most government departments in one way or another.

We do have external resources, that’s external police resources, to the Gold Coast police district assisting in that regard. We also have the Australian Defence Force (ADF) assisting with the hotel quarantine program.

I do understand the frustration of younger operational staff in that they would prefer to be out on the beat doing their normal job. But this is incredibly important. If we don’t get this right we could end up like Victoria, where over 5 million people were locked down … and that’s not a place where we want to be.

Gold Coast police chief superintendent Mark Wheeler during a media conference on the Gold Coast. Picture: Tertius Pickard

The evening of Wednesday at 9pm there was significant resources rostered in the entertainment precinct group. And that evidenced by the immediate response to that tragic event. The area was locked down within minutes, two offenders were located and arrested within about 20 minutes, important evidence was secured and police and emergency services did everything they could to render assistance to the person who unfortunately ultimately died.

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These are difficult times. There are many challenges across the state and the Gold Coast area is part of the first line of defence in terms of our borders, and in terms of our hotel quarantine program and that’s part of the defence of the state. It’s not just about the Gold Coast. Whilst I do understand the frustration by some officers, I have to look at this from a strategic perspective. And also we have over 1000 police on the Gold Coast. We have the District Tasking and Coordination Centre that is operating 24-hours a day.

Gold Coast police Chief Superintendant Mark Wheeler. Picture Scott Powick Newscorp

There is a senior officer on every shift and that senior officer makes operational decisions about the deployment of resources. We employ a borderless policing philosophy on the Gold Coast, and what that means is, if there are less staff rostered in one area, there is no border that says we can’t push more staff into the area where its required.

In terms of police duties at hotel quarantine areas, it would be up to the supervisor at the time if there was a need to re-deploy those staff somewhere else.

COVID quarantine hotel, Voco Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise. Picture: Jerad Williams

GCB: So that’s not to say they couldn’t leave their hotel duties?

Each hotel has a shift supervisor, so there’s a senior officer at each hotel. And if, for instance, it was 3am and things were very quiet, everyone was locked down and asleep, and there was an incident in the immediate vicinity of that hotel, and the shift supervisor felt that they could maintain security of the hotel, well those staff, or some staff could be deployed. But that’s an operational decision made at the time. The priority remains, and the priority will always remain the security of those quarantine hotels. If we simply all walk away from a hotel and just hope that everyone remains where they should be, we potentially have a Victoria outbreak.

The Army rolled into Surfers Paradise to stand guard outside the Voco Hotel, where passengers from overseas are in quarantine. Picture Glenn Hampson.

GCB: Specifically on that point, that hotel quarantine takes precedence over incident call-outs, is that correct?

The hotel quarantine is the priority. Other resources are available to deploy to those incidents.

GCB: Are SNP worse off because of the officers that have been deployed to hotel quarantine?

The Safe Night Precincts also have a large element of extra funds to actually police them and that’s what we’re doing. To say on any given night, and Wednesday is a really good example, the same number of staff that would normally be rostered in the entertainment precinct group on that Wednesday night at 9pm, was basically exactly the same whether we had a hotel quarantine program or not. There will absolutely be some shifts where there are less police rostered because we’re are actually balancing the COVID-19 response and the business-as-usual response, but across the district there is capacity to push additional staff in when the need arises.

But if someone’s trying to draw an analogy that Wednesday night happened because we have hotel quarantine programs in place its absolutely nonsense.

There was significant resources – and as I said – police locked that area down within minutes. I saw a comment by a witness … who said something along the lines of ‘I’ve never seen so many police run out of the Surfers Paradise area’.

GCB: What about claims about officers being unable to attend incidents because they can’t leave the station unmanned?

It would depend on the circumstances. If there’s a shift supervisor there, and staff are deployed on different jobs … yes we do need a police officer in the station because you get calls for service at the station. It’s not a case of that officer not being able to leave, it’s a case of the District Tasking and Coordination Centre deploying a resource to that area that it’s needed. It’s not about whose sitting in a police station and that they can’t leave. Our police stations, our 24-hour police stations, need to have a presence because people come to those areas at all times of the day and night needing assistance.

Police in Surfers Paradise after a 27-year-old Beenleigh died of a stab wound.

GCB: So to clarify your points, you don’t believe hotel quarantine programs have impacted the way that Safe Nights Precincts, business-as-usual operations are staffed on the Gold Coast?

No, of course we have challenges across all of our areas, we have challenges across the state, but we’re balancing the business-as-usual policing and our covid response and we’re doing that through a combination of additional resources from outside the district, working with our partner agencies, the use of additional funds, specifically for the safe night precinct, and also making sure that our District Tasking and Coordination Centre, that those senior officers in there are able to move resources around the district as needed.

Police patrol on the Gold Coast walking down the Cavil Avenue Mall. Picture Mike Batterham

GCB: Is this the first time you’ve heard of these concerns?

Yes it is to this point you’re making. Again, I do understand we’re now months into this pandemic and of course people are getting tired, of course people are getting frustrated, they’re not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. But this is incredibly important everyone needs to remember we’re in a pandemic. This is not normal times. It is unique in our lifetimes. The last time there was a pandemic of this nature was 1919, it was over 100 years ago. If we don’t get this right, again we become Victoria. I do understand their frustrations, but as the district officer and the district disaster coordinator, my responsibility is to the whole state of Queensland, not one street in one district.

GCB: Has a fourth quarantine hotel been set up on the Gold Coast?

We’ll be standing up a fourth hotel in the near future. The international (arrivals) cap is going to be raised over the coming weeks to a 1000 a week, up from 500 … returning to Queensland. So of course that means we need more capacity because all of those people need to go into quarantine, for very good reason and it’s very, very likely some of them will end up having COVID-19 and that’s why we need to quarantine them appropriately.

GCB: Anything further?

Just to reiterate, we are in unique times, we’re in a pandemic, we have to balance our resources. Probably the other important point is, we cannot simply materialise new police tomorrow to add to our resource pool. We have what we have to work with, we use the best we can with our partner agencies, and we have also to maintain or get greater capacity … we’ve stopped training, we’ve stopped conferences, courses, projects. We have non-operational people in those hotels. A good example is, some of our external people who have come to help us in our hotel program are actually from training areas from the Academy. They’re from more of the corporate roles. They’re actually using police who aren’t on the front line, or aren’t from the front line, to bolster our efforts down here.