Hotel inquiry: Professor Brendan Murphy offered Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton use of ADF troops
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton says he cannot recall if he passed on Professor Brendan Murphy’s offer of Australian Defence Force personnel at the height of the hotel quarantine crisis.
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Australia’s top health official wrote to Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton offering the use of Australian Defence Force personnel at the height of the state’s hotel quarantine crisis.
Documents tabled to the hotel inquiry showed the then commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, emailed Prof Sutton on June 20, offering private medical provider Aspen “or even ADF could help at very short notice’’.
But Prof Sutton, who had previously told Prof Murphy private security guards were the “wrong cohort’’ to use in the quarantine hotels, said he could not recall if he passed the ADF offer on.
He said his then deputy, Annaliese van Diemen, was aware of the offer and was able to raise it, and noted in an email another DHHS official, Merrin Bamert, would “touch base as required’’.
Prof Sutton said he did not have responsibility for maintaining infection control at the quarantine hotels, and did not even know private security guards were being used until after quarantine breaches at Rydges hotel in May.
In another day of damning evidence at the inquiry, Prof Sutton confirmed a person tested positive for COVID-19 after completing their 14-day mandatory quarantine program at the Stamford Hotel, and infected the driver who took them from the hotel.
He said he did not use his available powers to carry out coercive COVID-19 testing, despite revelations up to 30 per cent of people were refusing to undergo a test.
Prof Sutton also confirmed he disagreed with the decision not to appoint him state controller of the COVID-19 response, citing his experience and skills, along with his view the position would have given him oversight of operational activities “that I think it’s important as Chief Health Officer to be across.’’
He confirmed he did not use Commonwealth powers conferred on him as Victoria’s top biosecurity officer, instead accepting legal advice the powers under Victoria’s Public Health and Wellbeing Act were more appropriate.
And he said he did not know of problems with infection control at the hotels until after the Rydges and Stamford outbreaks, which the inquiry has previously heard seeded Victoria’s second wave, which has now killed more than 700 people.
Prof Sutton said he first learned of problems with the performance of private security guards through media reports. “Until there were outbreaks, I did not have reservations about the hotel quarantine program,’’ he said.
Prof Sutton said the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, on which he sat, did not endorse quarantining travellers at hotel.
While Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a press conference on March 27 the decision was made after “medical advice’’, Prof Sutton said the idea had not been endorsed by the committee prior to the announcement.
“Following the National Cabinet’s announcement of these requirements, the committee met to consider a national response, but did not agree or resolve to advise returning travellers to undertake a 14-day quarantine at a designated facility,’’ he said.
Dr van Diemen told the inquiry she too did not have oversight or responsibility for the operational aspects of the hotel quarantine inquiry.
She said she had “reservations about the fragmentation of service delivery’’ within the hotel quarantine program and there was no “single source of truth’’ for guest health and welfare services.
“I think we all could have treated the hotel quarantine program more as a health program than a logistics or compliance exercise,’’ she said in a statement.
She also said she was “certain there is no single cause of the current second wave, and that there were hundreds of micro-decisions and actions that resulted in the second wave, none of which would have individually been enough to cause the end result’’.
Dr van Diemen said a decision had been taken not to fine people for not being fully open about their movements during contact-tracing investigations.
“I think we were again acutely aware of the fine balance between the threat or the actualisation of large fines, and maintaining trust and maintaining people’s willingness to provide as accurate as information as possible,” she said.
She also told inquiry chair Jennifer Coate “potential alternatives’’ to hotel quarantine were worked on by the DHHS, including allowing some people to quarantine at home, potentially using electronic monitoring.
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