Rita Panahi: Why shambolic virus response will likely go unpunished
Premier Daniel Andrews has said more than once that the buck stops with him but here are the feckless five who should also be held accountable for their part in Victoria’s botched COVID response, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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There’s every chance that the architects of the biggest public policy blunder in Victorian history, one that has resulted in hundreds of deaths and caused unprecedented social and economic chaos, will go unpunished.
The collective amnesia that has struck the upper echelons of the well-remunerated Victorian bureaucracy has made it difficult to determine precisely who decided that Victoria would go it alone, reject ADF assistance and instead spend more than $60m on private security firms to guard quarantine hotels. One can only hope that the ministers appearing on Wednesday will not suffer the same selective amnesia we’ve seen at the hotel quarantine inquiry thus far.
Given the soft run Dan Andrews has enjoyed from the overwhelming majority of the Victorian media, particularly the free-to-air TV stations, it’s not surprising that 62 per cent of Victorians approve of his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, according to Newspoll.
Andrews’ approval rating is down from the 85 per cent in April and, perhaps surprisingly for the most Leftwing state in the country, more Victorians approve of the Prime Minister’s handling of the pandemic (71 per cent) than the Premier’s.
But how many of the six in 10 approving of Andrews’ performance would rethink that support if it weren’t for JobKeeper and inflated welfare benefits cushioning the impact of the economic catastrophe unfolding in Victoria?
We may only have around a quarter of the country’s population but Victoria will account for 60 per cent of all JobKeeper payments by the end of this month.
The full economic impact of the lockdown is not yet being felt thanks to the welfare largesse of the federal government, a largesse that has plunged the country into debt that will take decades to pay back.
Victoria’s shambolic coronavirus response is not all that surprising when you look at the ideologues in the bureaucracy, from the Chief Health Officer to the department heads and officials whose performance at the hotel quarantine inquiry has done little to inspire confidence.
These are people more concerned with diversity quotas and training than infection control.
Andrews has said more than once that the buck stops with him but the following feckless five should also be held accountable for their part in Victoria’s botched COVID response:
Jenny Mikakos: The Health Minister in charge of the department that has woefully mismanaged infection control at quarantine hotels and delivered substandard contact tracing. The training of security guards fell under the purview of Mikakos’ DHHS.
As we learned at the inquiry authorised officers were given diversity briefings but little to no training in infection control. DHHS bureaucrats were preoccupied with running a “compassionate program” where hotel guests didn’t feel intimidated by army personnel.
Martin Pakula: The Minister for the Coordination of Jobs, Precincts and Regions: COVID-19 claims his staff were focused on logistics alone but evidence heard at the inquiry gives a clue to why security guards were used at all.
Officials in Pakula’s DJPR saw the hiring of guards as killing multiple birds with one taxpayer funded stone. One email reads: “Unified employ loads of Jobs Victoria clients, so it’s actually serving a broader public purpose.” Unified being the questionable Sydney outfit that was not on the government’s approved list of contractors but was the beneficiary of the bulk of the contract because one of its owners has some indigenous ancestry.
Lisa Neville: One can only hope the Police Minister’s memory has held up better than that of former chief commissioner Graham Ashton. There needs be a clear understanding of whether it was Victoria Police or the minister who did not want officers used in hotel quarantine.
Top bureaucrats identified within 24 hours that there was a problem with the hotel scheme with an email from a senior official sent on March 29 “urgently” requesting Victoria Police be present 24/7 at each hotel. It fell on deaf ears.
Brett Sutton: The Chief Health Officer’s statement at the inquiry has already been contradicted by State Controllers Jason Helps and Andrea Spiteri who say he had “absolute control of the public health emergency”.
Sutton sent an email in June to his national counterpart Brendan Murphy about the guards being the “wrong cohort”. Murphy responded that ADF could assist but Sutton cannot recall if he passed on that information, nor is there any indication that he did any follow up on this crucial issue.
Annaliese van Diemen: The Deputy Chief Health Officer has been shown to be out of her depth at every turn.
She played a significant part in contact tracing mismanagement, she told the inquiry that some guests with COVID-19 were allowed to leave hotel quarantine and she refused to supply sufficient safety equipment to aged-care facility staff because of unfounded fears that it would be stolen. No wonder she has been moved sideways to oversee avian flu.
IN SHORT: One of the grim unintended consequences of Victoria’s lockdown strategy has been the impact on youth mental health. Recent DHHS data showed a disturbing jump by a third in the number of children presenting to emergency rooms after self-harming.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist