AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw sheds new light on private security call for hotel quarantine
The nation’s police commissioners had agreed to use police officers and soldiers to guard quarantine hotels, according to the AFP chief, who says Graham Ashton did not raise any issues.
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A meeting of the nation’s police commissioners agreed that police officers and soldiers would be used to secure quarantine hotels, before Victoria decided to call in private security guards instead.
And Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton did not raise any issues with that model when it was discussed, according to Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw.
Mr Kershaw faced a Senate inquiry on Tuesday morning, where he was quizzed about his text messages with Mr Ashton on March 27, the day the hotel quarantine scheme was agreed by the national cabinet.
Mr Ashton told him that Victoria’s Department of Premier and Cabinet had set up a “deal” involving private security, to which Mr Kershaw replied: “That’s new.”
Speaking about those events for the first time, Mr Kershaw said: “I put down ‘that’s new’, because my view was that the agreed or the suggested way forward would be the use of police and ADF.”
“That was something that the police commissioners forum had discussed prior to this,” he said, although he was unable to pinpoint exactly when those talks had occurred.
Asked by Liberal senator Sarah Henderson if Mr Ashton had questioned that model at the forum, Mr Kershaw said: “I don’t recall anything being raised.”
He said they did not discuss the DPC plan for private security, and that he did not know who made the decision to use security guards instead.
Mr Kershaw said he did not have any concerns about that model because he was “very clear in establishing what the AFP would be doing”.
“It’s a flexible approach and it was their decision, not mine,” he said.
“It was a matter for them. I moved on to our priorities.”
He also explained how the Defence Force had briefed the police commissioners on March 28 “on what the ADF could offer”.
Mr Kershaw said these talks were co-ordinated as part of the AFP’s role to co-ordinate and ensure “everyone understood their role”.
The AFP had placed an officer in Victoria Police’s operation centre on March 25.
Mr Kershaw said it was clear the AFP would play a “support role” to escort overseas arrivals through the airport and to the hotels, but that his officers were not involved in guarding the hotels.
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