Ministers spent millions of taxpayer funds on legal defence for Covid inquiry

The Andrews government spent a whopping $2m more in legal fees at the hotel quarantine inquiry than the cost of the inquiry itself.

The Andrews Government spent more money representing itself at the hotel quarantine inquiry than the inquiry did, it has been revealed.

Premier Daniel Andrews launched the inquiry to probe failures in the quarantine program that sparked Victoria’s deadly second wave of coronavirus transmissions, which killed 801 people.

The inquiry, headed by former judge Jennifer Coate, spent $5.7m, but state government departments spent millions more in legal fees.

The government has now admitted spending $7.7m in legal fees, but the true figure is expected to be significantly higher, with some spending still not disclosed.

Despite dozens of hearing days and combing through 70,000 documents, the inquiry failed to identify who made the disastrous decision to hire private security guards.

A procession of ministers and bureaucrats all failed to take responsibility, saying they did not know who made the decision.

The Premier’s own department racked up a $1.01 million bill for its defence team.

The Herald Sun can reveal that the Department of Health and Human Services spent $6.25m on legal costs, while the Premier’s own department racked up a $1.01m bill.

The Department of Treasury and Finance spent $446,000 on its legal fees.

At least 12 separate legal teams represented departments, government agencies and individual ministers. They included 10 senior counsel and 21 other lawyers.

The DHHS and the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions each had legal teams attend 24 days of hearings.

Mr Andrews, former health Minister Jenny Mikakos and ministers Martin Pakula and Lisa Neville were separately represented.

Counsel assisting the inquiry Rachel Ellyard questioned the use of the army of lawyers in September, saying it was “not usually the case that multiple government departments who have had a role in a matter under investigation are separately represented in the way that multiple departments have been separately represented in this proceedings”.

“Assume from me that it’s somewhat unusual,” she said.

Jennifer Coate presided over the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry.

Opposition security of government spokesman Richard Riordan said every Victorian should be furious that the Premier had “spent millions of taxpayer funds on legal defence to protect his government from being accountable”.

“These lawyers were not hired to help reveal the truth, they were paid to provide departments and bureaucrats a get-out-of-jail-free card,” he said. “Victorians deserve the truth.”

A government spokeswoman said the inquiry was set up to “get the answers Victorians deserved”.