Hotel inquiry: Botched quarantine program failed to keep Victorians safe
The Andrews Government’s botched hotel quarantine program became a “seeding ground” for COVID-19 and has been deemed responsible for 768 deaths and 18,418 cases.
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The Andrews Government’s hotel quarantine program failed to keep Victorians safe, and instead became a “seeding ground” for COVID-19 that unleashed a wave of “devastation and despair’’.
Ben Ihle, counsel assisting the inquiry into the fatally-flawed program, said: “the failure by the hotel quarantine program to contain this virus is ... responsible for the deaths of 768 people and the infection of some 18,418 others.
“One only needs to pause and to reflect on those figures to appreciate the full scope of devastation and despair occasioned as a result of the outbreak.
In explosive closing submissions, the inquiry heard that no single person made the decision to hire private security - but Victoria Police’s “preference” for this strongly contributed to the “creeping consensus’’ the guards be used.
And counsel assisting savaged the heads of three government departments for failing in their duties, including Premier Daniel Andrews’ right-hand man, Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Chris Eccles.
Counsel assisting Ben Ihle said: “The program that was intended to contain the disease was indeed a seeding ground for the spread of COVID-19 into the community.’’
In their closing address, he and two lawyers also assisting the inquiry made submissions to board chair Jennifer Coate asserting that:
NO SINGLE person or action caused the catastrophic breakdown of the program, but rather a series of compounding bureaucratic actions and inactions;
PREMIER Daniel Andrews pushed on with hotel quarantine despite “relatively thin’’ evidence that people weren’t obeying home quarantine orders;
MR ANDREWS’ press conference on the day before quarantine started “may well’’ have contributed to the decision to hire private security;
THREE departmental secretaries failed to brief their ministers about major developments relating to the program, which contributed to problems at the flawed program;
THE actions of those secretaries, who did not give satisfactory explanations for their failures, gave rise to serious questions about whether the Westminster system of ultimate ministerial accountability had been “unsettled.’’
SERIOUS questions arose over the Department of Health and Human Services’ failure to conduct daily reviews of people in detention, although the board did not make “legal conclusions as to the lawfulness of what was undertaken’’;
THE decision not to call in the ADF was reasonable, given the preceding decision to hire private security;
THE DHHS failed to understand or perform its control agency roles;
FORMER Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton may have “misremembered’’ the sequence of events which occurred on March 27 as the program was being set up, and;
THE DHHS and Department of Jobs, Regions and Precincts inappropriately “divested’’ the Government’s responsibility for infection control and training onto private security and hotel companies, and put their employees at risk.
Senior counsel assisting the inquiry Tony Neal said evidence did not show bad faith or corruption had led to the catastrophic failures, which seeded 99 per cent of Victoria’s second COVID-19 wave.
He urged Ms Coate to make a formal finding that alternative forms of quarantine be implemented in the future.
“The option of mandatory home quarantine or a hybrid model involving initial reception into a hotel for risk assessment and triage ... would have proven to be less of an imposition on the lives and basic freedoms of those returned travellers who were caught by the program,’’ he said.
The lawyers did not make detailed submissions against Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, who resigned on Saturday, or Jobs Minister Martin Pakula, although Ms Coate could still make findings relating to them when she hands her report to Governor Linda Dessau on November 6.
The submissions relating to three departmental secretaries – Premier and Cabinet’s Chris Eccles, Health and Human Services’ Kym Peake, and Jobs, Precincts and Regions’ Simon Phemister - essentially accuse them of failing to properly disclose their duties by keeping important information from their ministers, and therefore contributing to problems within the program.
Another counsel assisting, Rachel Ellyard, said it was “astonishing’’ that no-one could say who made the decision to hire private security guards, but she submitted the “creeping consensus’’ was sealed at the 4.30pm meeting at the State Control Centre on March 27.
“It wasn’t Victoria Police’s decision, we don’t put it that highly, but Victoria Police’s clear position expressed in that meeting, that private security would be, in its view or its preference, the appropriate first line of enforcement, has to be understood as a substantial contributing factor to that creeping consensus,’’ she said.
“Now, it may well be that the Premier’s remarks had contributed to that general creeping assumption, that private security would be used.
“...that consensus was influenced and strongly influenced, we would say, by everyone at that meeting understanding what Victoria Police’s preference was.
“Their preference became the outcome.’’
Ms Ellyard said Mr Andrews had given evidence that it was “too risky’’ to allow people to quarantine at home, and that he had formed that view through statements made by Mr Ashton. However Mr Ashton had given evidence that indicated some of the non-compliance was rather the result of police having incorrect addresses.
“So it might be thought that the evidence that there was any substantial degree of noncompliance was relatively thin,’’ she said.
“But nevertheless the decision was taken that designated facilities, that is hotels, would be used. That meant the creation of a system, a risk mitigation system, that had its own risks.’’
Ms Ellyard said Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp did not initially seek ADF “boots on the ground’’ assistance with the program, and that this was “a reasonable conclusion to come to’’ given private security was to be used.
Opposition leader Michael O’Brien called on Mr Andrews to resign in light of the damning submissions.
“The Inquiry’s own lawyers say it can ‘comfortably find’ the Andrews Government’s hotel quarantine botching caused 768 deaths and more than 18,000 infections,” Mr O’Brien said.
“This is without a doubt the worst failure of public administration in Victorian history. This is not about money - it is about lives taken and lives ruined.
“If accountability for all the deaths and damage is to mean anything, all those responsible must go - starting with Andrews himself.”
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