Coronavirus Victoria: Chief health officer not asked about security guards
Brett Sutton has revealed he was not asked whether security guards should be used to patrol hotels during the state’s failed quarantine program.
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Victoria’s chief health officer has revealed he was not asked whether it was appropriate to use security guards to patrol hotels during the state’s failed quarantine program.
Professor Brett Sutton faced questions on Tuesday at a parliamentary committee hearing into the Government’s response to coronavirus. He was asked several times by state Opposition MP Richard Riordan about the decision to use private security guards.
“I was not involved in that decision making whatsoever,” Prof Sutton said.
“I can’t speak to the broader department, but I was not informed of it, and I was not asked for advice.”
Prof Sutton said he was sure senior Department of Health and Human Services officials were involved in the decision, but he wasn’t in relation to contracting security guards.
Asked if he was made aware of issues within the hotel quarantine scheme before the virus outbreaks were known, Prof Sutton said no issues had been raised with him about security staff or infection prevention and control measures.
“Issues had been raised with me around the co-ordination of data, the co-ordination of welfare support from medical and nursing staff and some of the issues that subcontracted health services were challenged by in the very early days of the quarantine program,” he said.
Mr Sutton said those concerns were referred to the appropriate quarantine command structure, a separate command the chief health officer said he was not a part of.
When asked who had the final say over the hotel quarantine program, DHHS secretary Kym Peake said there was an overarching “governance group” made up of several departments and agencies that provided that function.
She said the group had a deputy commander with emergency management expertise.
Both the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Health Minister Jenny Mikakos also dodged questions surrounding the state’s quarantine scheme.
Mr Andrews also revealed the Government only had a few hours to plan for the hard lockdown of nine public housing towers last month.
Mr Andrews said on Tuesday morning he was only advised of the need to lockdown the Flemington and North Melbourne buildings due to coronavirus outbreaks two or three hours before he announced it a media conference.
During intense questioning from Greens MP Sam Hibbins during Tuesday morning’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearing, the Premier admitted not every element of the tower lockdown was perfect.
“It was late morning, two to three hours before we made the announcement, it was confirmed by the public health team we needed to lock these towers down,” Mr Andrews said.
“This has never occurred before. Of course every element was not (perfect).”
Mr Andrews told the committee hearing that Prof Sutton had advised that without the immediate lockdown of the nine towers the virus would run wild throughout the entire community.
The Premier said it wasn’t feasible to allow residents and authorities a couple of days to prepare for the lockdown.
Police were in place to enforce the hard lockdown of thousands of residents living in the nine towers for five days from about 3pm on July 4, just moments after the Premier made the announcement in the early afternoon.
Residents at the 33 Alfred St, North Melbourne building were locked down for about a fortnight, with that decision now the subject of an investigation by the Victorian Ombudsman.
At least 310 coronavirus cases have been linked to the North Melbourne and Flemington towers.
Mr Andrews said he would leave it to others to just his government’s handling of the pandemic when asked if he thought Victoria was performing the worst of all the states and territories.
He said there was clearly a second wave, which was defined as an “uncontrollable number of cases”.
Mr Andrews was also forced to defend senior Minister Martin Pakula after it was revealed his department was involved in setting up the bungled hotel quarantine scheme.
The Premier said he wouldn’t be asking Mr Pakula to resign during questions from state Opposition MP Richard Riordan.
The intense scrutiny comes just hours after a leaked self-congratulatory video revealed Global Victoria – the government agency that manages the state’s overseas trade missions – played a key role in setting up the hotel quarantine program.
The quarantine program, the subject of a separate judicial inquiry, has since been blamed for the second wave of virus infections within Victoria.
Global Victoria falls under the Jobs, Precincts and Regions portfolio headed by Mr Pakula.
Mr Andrews refused to draw comparisons of the leaked video to the branch-stacking scandal that resulted in three ministers resigning in less than 48 hours earlier this year.
Mr Andrews has publicly taken personal responsibility for the hotel quarantine bungle.
When asked by Mr Riordan about what it meant to take personal responsibility, Mr Andrews said was providing support to everyone who needed it during the state’s second wave.
“It’s (about) being exclusively focused on driving down the amount of movement and cases across the Victorian community,” the Premier said during the hearing.
Mr Andrews said it was unclear to him where some of the decisions relating to the quarantine program originated from, and the inquiry had been set up to “get us the answers”.
He said genomic sequencing had revealed a significant portion of new cases and Victoria’s second wave had stemmed from errors and the spread of the virus from hotel quarantine.
“That is beyond doubt,” the Premier said.
Originally published as Coronavirus Victoria: Chief health officer not asked about security guards