Dee Ryall: How Andrews government has been asleep at the wheel
Despite 16 weeks of lockdown, the Andrews government still hasn’t equipped the hospitality or beauty industries with the tools to keep us safe. The time to prepare was before opening up, so why are we still behind other states, asks Dee Ryall.
Opinion
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If there was ever a time that Victorians needed the Andrews government to “walk and chew gum”, it was over the past four months.
While Premier Daniel Andrews toasted his reopening announcement with top-shelf whiskey and a doughnut, retail, hospitality and beauty were sent off in a tailspin to get organised and open up.
But the toolbox to open safely was non-existent, and the government was caught napping.
Despite 16 weeks of lockdown, the Andrews government still hasn’t equipped pubs, bars, restaurants, shops and salons with the tools they need to keep us safe.
Instead, all they’ve been given are instructions for a COVIDSafe plan and a visitor log.
Yet Daniel Andrews didn’t need to look far to find a toolkit. NSW has developed a suite of tools freely available to business. A suite we could have requested access to and from which we could have learned.
Tools such as quick response codes are available to NSW businesses free of charge. QR codes enable customers and guests to check-in using their smartphone.
It is contactless, doesn’t rely on paper and pen, and allows quick and effective upload to a centralised system in the Department of Health and Human Services. That means data for contact tracing is ready to go — no time is wasted.
When asked at the daily press conference about a QR code system for Victoria, Andrews made it clear that pen and paper were just as good for registering contact details and that perhaps others had more faith in IT than he did.
Not only do pens get handled by customers, but it was also pens, paper and faxes that caught Victoria flat-footed when COVID-19 jumped hotel quarantine and spread throughout the community.
While the Premier might think that approach is OK, and it probably was 20 years ago when that’s all that was available, it cost us precious contact tracing time because our systems were seriously outdated.
And now we find ourselves, again, behind the eight ball, without something as basic and easy to construct as a centralised QR code system.
After weeks of questioning by journalists, the Premier relented and finally announced that Victoria will have a QR code system after all, but not those used by NSW or the ACT that we know work. We’re developing our own, reinventing the wheel.
Had the Andrews government thought ahead about what business and our contact tracers would need, they’d have included it into the design specs for our new contact tracing software, and we’d have it right now, when we needed it, not as an afterthought.
NSW also has a COVIDSafe registration system that is mandatory for hospitality venues, gyms, funeral homes and places of public worship. It’s also available to business generally.
The system provides a level of confidence to business, consumers and the government that people are being kept safe.
Government-approved digital and printed badges let consumers and attendees know that the business is COVIDSafe registered, and that compliance with its plan is being monitored.
The registration enables customers to rate the business on hygiene and physical distancing with reports accessible for improvement purposes. It also allows the NSW regulator to keep an eye on things.
NSW has COVID marshalls as another protective measure in its arsenal for pubs, clubs, bars, gyms and food and drinks premises. That means a staff member must know the COVIDSafe plan in detail and monitor the welfare of staff and customers, hygiene and cleaning as well as physical distancing.
Ensuring records are kept is another function of the marshall.
Victoria, on the other hand, only requires COVID marshalls at high-risk businesses such as abattoirs, meat, poultry and seafood processing facilities and supermarket distribution centres.
Being a COVID marshall does not mean having extra staff but that someone is tasked with keeping an eye out to make sure that what should be happening is.
Given how high the stakes are for Victoria, it is surprising that COVID marshalls are not mandated in our pubs, bars and food and drink premises too.
The importance of having someone responsible for monitoring compliance with the COVIDSafe plan cannot be underestimated.
It keeps a level of consciousness in the day-to-day operations, maintains proper standards, by making sure someone has responsibility for maintaining line of sight. And it provides a point of contact when WorkSafe drops by for a random check.
The Andrews government had 16 weeks to prepare for Victoria’s reopening, yet it has little to show for it.
Whether it’s arrogance or naivety, we haven’t learned, or borrowed available systems, from our neighbouring states.
We were behind the rest of Australia before the lockdown and despite having 16 weeks to get ready, we’re still behind.
The time for preparation was during the lockdown, not after.
The risks were foreseeable and manageable, and while most businesses have done exceedingly well, the government has been asleep at the wheel.
Dee Ryall is a risk and governance specialist, CEO of GWGlobal, and former A Victorian Liberal MP