Jenny Mikakos warns Hotel Quarantine Inquiry board to treat Premier Daniel Andrews claims with ‘caution’
Victoria’s Opposition says the hotel quarantine inquiry must recall Premier Daniel Andrews and former health minister Jenny Mikakos to get down to the bottom of the truth. It comes after Mikakos launched a scathing attack on Andrews.
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The state opposition has demanded Daniel Andrews and Jenny Mikakos are hauled back before the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry.
Opposition leader Michael O’Brien said today the inquiry must immediately recall the Premier and former Health Minister in light of her final submissions.
“Given the absolute clash of evidence between Daniel Andrews and Jenny Mikakos the Board of inquiry must reopen and must recall both of them,” he said.
“It’s also very concerning that Ms Mikakos indicated that effectively she’d felt muzzled, she wasn’t able to have her lawyers cross examine ministers, she wasn’t able to have her lawyers cross examine departmental secretaries.
“We’ve always had a concern that this inquiry would not find out the truth. Those concerns seemed to be justified.
“If this inquiry is to have any public confidence, if this inquiry is actually about finding out the facts, it must recall the premier and the former health minister. They are completely at odds with each other, only one of them can be telling the truth.”
PRIVATE SECURITY DECISION TRACED BACK TO PREMIER’S OFFICE
Sky News host Peta Credlin says there has been an attempt to cover up the truth of who ordered the use of private security in the bungled hotel quarantine inquiry.
Ms Credlin has pored over fresh evidence today tendered to the hotel quarantine inquiry and has traced the decision to use private security back to Premier Daniel Andrews’ private office.
“There are further serious questions facing the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, his ministers and the Inquiry into Hotel Quarantine,” Ms Credlin said.
“At the heart of it, I believe there has been an attempt to cover up the truth in relation to fateful decision to use private security, instead of police and defence force personnel, to guard Melbourne’s quarantine hotels that the Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton confirmed in his media appearance again today, directly led to Victoria’s second wave and as proven by genomic testing, the deaths of almost 800 Victorians.”
Ms Credlin said evidence showed that there was no “creeping assumption” but a direct decision to use private security.
“There is no doubt a real decision was made here – and no creeping assumption – because again in the Victoria Police submission today and the former Commissioner’s earlier evidence, at 1.22 he tells his federal counterpart, Victoria Police won’t be running hotel quarantine security that instead, Victoria will use private security,” she said.
“Now here is what I believe it critically important and that until now, until tonight, has received very little scrutiny.
“At paragraph 34 of the Victoria Police closing submission, it says this, that at 1.19pm, so inside the critical six minute window where Graham Ashton goes from being uptight about the use of Victoria Police officers as hotel guards to telling this federal counterpart that it won’t be us, it will be private security and it’s a special deal set up by DPC.”
The message read: “At 1.19pm a staff member from the Premier’s Private Office (PPO) sent a text message to Mr Ada, Deputy Secretary (DPC) referring to security”
Ms Credlin said the name of the staff member had been redacted from evidence but the revelations pose “serious questions for the Premier, his office and indeed the very conduct of Inquiry”.
TREAT DAN’S CLAIMS WITH CAUTION: MIKAKOS
It comes after Ms Mikakos sensationally challenged Mr Andrews over his evidence to the inquiry, urging the board to treat his claims with “caution.’’
In a closing submission to the inquiry, Ms Mikakos’ legal team has submitted that Mr Andrews’ decision to “subvert’’ the usual Cabinet processes may have contributed to the errors made in the fatally-flawed hotel quarantine program.
And her legal team specifically disputed the claim that the decision to use private security guards had been a “creeping assumption’’ – saying it was instead an “actual decision’’ which the Premier must have known about at his 3pm press conference on March 27.
She also indicated she and other ministers had not cross-examined Mr Andrews for fear it would be “politically disadvantageous’’ or “improper’’.
“It is implausible to assert that “the use of private security [was] not really a decision at all”, but rather was “arrived at by way of a creeping assumption, that took hold over a period perhaps a couple of hours, and that wasn’t questioned by anyone”,’’ Ms Mikakos’ legal team said of counsel assisting’s closing submissions.
“With respect, such a submission has insufficient regard to the realities of governmental operation and decision-making. In this regard, it is respectfully submitted that the Board ought to treat with caution the Premier’s evidence where he sought to explain the reference to the use of private security in the Hotel Quarantine Program made by him during his media conference that commenced at 3pm on 27 March 2020,’’ her lawyers said.
Mr Andrews told the board he did not know why he mentioned private security at his press conference on that day, but insisted he had not made the decision to use private security.
“It is submitted that had the decision not already been made by that time, the Premier would not have announced the use of private security in the program,’’ Ms Mikakos said in her submission.
“In this regard, it is observed that no evidence was led about what briefings were provided to the Premier by his office in advance of that media conference.’’
Ms Mikakos also sought to draw in her former Cabinet colleague, Jobs Minister Martin Pakula, saying the board should find his department was also responsible for the program, contrary to the evidence given by Mr Pakula and Mr Andrews that she was the responsible minister.
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