Hotel security company relied heavily on subcontractors
The Sydney-based security company hired to manage Melbourne’s hotel quarantine system was nowhere to be seen in the initial days of the program, a subcontractor says.
Victoria
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A subcontractor employed to manage security at quarantine hotels has alleged the main company under scrutiny at the Coate Inquiry was nowhere to be seen during the early stages of the program.
He alleges that, despite being awarded a $30m contract and not being an approved supplier to the Victorian Government, the Sydney-based Unified Security was forced to rely almost entirely on subcontractors.
“Unified don’t have any security guards based here in Melbourne,” he said. “They have very minimal security staff. I don’t think it’s more than — lucky if it’s 15 or 20.
“So every contract that they have, especially with the quarantine, it was heavily reliant on subcontracting — and I don’t believe that they had a Unified person working on the hotel quarantine — 100 per cent subcontractor.”
The allegation that Unified was incapable of staffing the quarantine hotels despite being awarded a massive contract is supported by the evidence of Andrew McLean, whose company Elite Protection was put in charge of security at Rydges on Swanston, the hotel used to house COVID-positive patients.
Like Mr McLean, despite making a submission to the Coate Inquiry, he has not been asked to give evidence.
The contractor was one of several people interviewed by Sky News Australia’s Peta Credlin in her investigation into the quarantine debacle that aired on Sunday night.
He also alleged that Unified ignored his pleas to provide more training. “I raised the question with the Unified management,” he said. “But it falls in a deaf ear.”
The contractor, who asked not to be identified, has alleged he had been threatened if he spoke on his experience running hotel quarantine security.
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