Andrew Bolt: Inquiry shows Andrews just a passenger on a ship of fools

Daniel Andrews has made it clear he’s a control freak who controls nothing and his evidence to the hotel quarantine inquiry shows he has lost confidence in his own government, revealing him to be a mere passenger on a ship of fools, writes Andrew Bolt.

Don’t blame Premier Daniel Andrews for this virus disaster. He’s made clear to his inquiry an astonishing fact: he’s a control freak who controls nothing.

Andrews’ evidence on Friday to the inquiry into how the virus escaped his quarantine hotels, killing more than 750 Victorians, was utterly damning.

Indeed, it was mostly the Premier damning his own ministers and bureaucrats — particularly his Health Minister and head of department — only to ultimately damn himself as a mere passenger on a ship of fools.

Take his response to this question: did he ever try to find out who made the fatal mistake to hire untrained security guards for the security of those quarantine hotels?

Andrews’ response: yes, but “I couldn’t get answers”. That’s why he called this inquiry.

But what a blow! Andrews found it “very disappointing” that even at the inquiry not one of his underlings — not one minister, health official, department boss, crisis manager or police chief — could remember or confess who actually decided to hire those guards.

In fact, his disappointment was “perhaps even greater” because it may even be that no one at all made that call, and just assumed someone else had.

But wait. A fish rots from the head.

As Rachel Ellyard, counsel assisting the inquiry, pointed out, Andrews two years ago called an inquiry into the private security industry because he was worried many guards were casuals, untrained, possessing poor English and little equipment, and often ripped off by sham contracts.

Premier Daniel Andrews seems to have been ignorant of many critical decisions. Picture: Getty Images

Yet these were the very people Andrews suggested in March could run the most critical part of Victoria’s defence against the virus.

Back then he said setting up quarantine hotels for returning travellers would make it easier for “police, private security, all of our health team” to keep control over potentially infectious travellers.

Yes, private security: those untrained, ill-equipped casuals with bad English could protect this state from the most catastrophic pandemic in our lifetime.

But asked about that at the inquiry, Andrews started to suffer from the epidemic of amnesia galloping through his government.

“I can’t clarify for you or outline for you why I chose those three groups,” he said.

In fact, if you believe Andrews, he left it to someone else to decide whether to use private security guards instead of police or the army: “I have no recall of having a specific view one way or the other.”

Why not? But again and again, it seems Andrews never made the big calls and, if he’s to be believed, was never told of them by those who did.

For instance, Andrews claims his head of department, Chris Eccles, didn’t tell him of an email from the Prime Minister’s head of department on April 8 urging him to use soldiers instead of private security.

He should have, said Andrews, damning Eccles: “I think it would have been very significant to me.”

But Andrews seems to have been in ignorance of so many other critical decisions.

He is not even sure if he knew at first which bits of his government were in charge of the quarantine hotels: “I might’ve had sense of departmental arrangements but I think agency arrangements, I would not necessarily be briefed specifically on that.”

Nor did he know that his own state emergency plan called for Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton to lead the virus fight, and Andrews did not explain why Sutton had been cut out.

If Daniel Andrews knew Jenny Mikakos was no good, why did he hours earlier tell reporters he had confidence in her?

The Premier did not know it was now unusual for his departments to have separate lawyers at the inquiry, all cross-examining other departments to shift the blame.

But on one thing he was clear: responsibility for the quarantine hotels when the virus broke out belonged to Health Minister Jenny Mikakos.

In fact, he’d stripped her of that responsibility on June 8, after the virus escaped. The Attorney-General, of all people, took over.

Which brings us to this question: if Andrews knew Mikakos was no good, why did he hours earlier tell reporters he had confidence in her?

In fact, wondered Rachel Ellyard, why even call the inquiry?

After all, she said, Andrews had, in taking the hotels from Mikakos, already decided three things had to be fixed: the hotels needed better security staff, people with clinical expertise, and managers with a clear line of control.

Well, the real answer is that Andrews needed this inquiry as an excuse to not answer journalists’ questions about what went wrong. It would be “inappropriate” to say anything before then, he’s said for months.

Now he says he won’t answer such questions for another five weeks, until this inquiry delivers its report.

But maybe it’s worse than a media trick. You see, it seems Andrews has now lost confidence in his own government to protect us.

He told the inquiry he would not set up new quarantine hotels — or let travellers return — until the inquiry reports: “You have a deeper understanding of these matters than we do.”

What? Judge Jennifer Coate has a deeper understanding about quarantining the sick than does the Health Minister, the Health Department and the Chief Health Officer?

Andrews has more confidence in her than in his government?

That’s proof of how bad that government is. Or it’s Andrews palming off responsibility all over again.

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