James Campbell: Hotel inquiry shines ugly light on Daniel Andrews
While giving evidence Daniel Andrews adamantly stuck to his opinion ADF personnel were not on offer despite truckloads of evidence to the contrary. And it’s that ruthlessness, that could see him boot two of his oldest allies.
James Campbell
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Long before Daniel Andrews had finished on Friday, it was clear that while this inquiry may not end up answering the burning questions at the heart of the hotel quarantine debacle, it has shone an ugly light on the way he’s been running Victoria.
No one in his government watching this performance could be left in any doubt they are they are dispensable to Daniel Andrews.
Not after they saw the way he treated his health minister, Jenny Mikakos or the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Chris Eccles.
The Premier has repeatedly said it is his opinion ADF personnel were not on offer, most importantly to parliament.
He has stuck to this position as truckloads of evidence has emerged that this is not the case, most conclusively in the email exchange between Eccles, the top public servant in Treasury Place and his counterpart in Canberra, Phil Gaetjens.
When Eccles was confronted with this explicit offer he answered — loyally — that he couldn’t recall what he had done with the information.
It is fair to say this response was met with scepticism by everyone who knows him and how this government operates.
The general view is that if he didn’t tell the Premier or the relevant people running the hotel quarantine program, it can only have been because he knew there was no point – someone had already made a decision that the ADF wasn’t welcome.
Andrews was adamant he hadn’t been told about the Commonwealth offer. Should he have been told? Yes. Should the people in charge of the program have been told? Yes.
Goodbye Mr Eccles, it’s been fun. Mikakos was dispatched just as ruthlessly: “Q: Does it concern you, Premier, that the Secretary of the Department (Kym Peake) and the Minister (Mikakos) who has given evidence, you saw as having accountability, seem to have not seen themselves as having accountability in the same way? A: Yes Q: There shouldn’t be any degree of confusion about this, should there? Either at the ministerial or Secretary level or all the way down to the front desk at the hotel? A: There should be none.” Thanks Jenny if you could start clearing your office, that would be really good.
But, getting back to the ADF, if he had been told their offer was there what would he have done? Hard to say really: “I ... I can’t predict what outcome it might have had but I certainly would have wanted to know, because it would have presented us with options that we otherwise didn’t have, in a good faith interpretation, very clear interpretation, of what had been decided at National Cabinet.”
So at the end of this inquiry, the position would seem to be, the Premier and his top public servant took the wrong impression out of National Cabinet but at some time in the fortnight after that meeting an explicit offer arrived contradicting that false impression.
But not only did Eccles not tell him, even now, 750 funerals later, Andrews can’t say for sure if it would have made any difference.
If it weren’t laughably implausible, this refusal to entertain any sort of self-criticism, or even reflection, could seem almost touching.
Asked by the inquiry ahead of his appearance would he, you know, do it all again with the private security guards we get this: “I recommended that the Governor establish this Board of Inquiry because I wanted, and Victorians deserve to, understand the nature of any mistakes made in conducting the Program, by whom they were made, and what recommendations might be made for the future.
“My view as to the engagement of private security contractors in any future iteration of a mandatory hotel quarantine program will guided by this Board of Inquiry’s findings and recommendations.”
Does he really expect us to believe this?
That he or anyone else anywhere still has an open mind, that they might even do it again?
The only answer that came close to being as evasive was the evidence of the former chief commissioner of police Graham Ashton, who expended a great deal of energy trying to convince the inquiry that he hadn’t really expressed an opinion as to whether or not Victoria Police should have been put in charge of security – a position, incidentally, that when asked about it, Andrews went out of his way to ridicule: “That would certainly not accord with custom and practice that I’ve observed throughout my time in public life and throughout my time as a Minister of the Crown and throughout my time as the Premier of this State.”
Compared to this pair, Mikakos was a model of honesty and candour.
She admitted the use of private security guards was a mistake and when realised that, she had wanted to explore using the ADF.
It won’t do her any good of course. Like everyone else around Daniel Andrews, she’s dispensable.
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