More than 3000 breaches in Melbourne’s hotel quarantine program since post-second wave revamp

Melbourne’s troubled hotel quarantine system has been the site of countless “serious” breaches, including assault and threats, since the program relaunched post-second wave.

More than 12 incidents are reported daily inside Victoria’s trouble-plagued hotel quarantine system, according to new figures.

The figures, obtained by the Liberal Nationals under Freedom of Information negotiations, reveal there have been more than 3000 recorded incidents to June 30, since the revamped Covid-19 quarantine program was launched in November last year.

Of the 3000 incidents, 2066 were considered serious breaches that required immediate escalation within 30 minutes for urgent notification and remediation.

The remaining 976 incidents have been classified as reportable incidents and include abuse to staff, assaults or threats made by a resident, injuries to residents and damage to hotel property or equipment.

Opposition police and crime prevention spokesman David Southwick said Labor hadn’t learnt the lessons of its “catastrophic” hotel quarantine program that sparked the deadly second wave.

Mr Southwick said Premier Daniel Andrews had “no plan” to plug the gaps in his “failed quarantine program”.

Breaches are still occurring in Melbourne’s hotel quarantine system. Picture: Jason Edwards

“With more than one breach every two hours, it’s clear Labor’s quarantine program is a Covid ticking time bomb,” he said.

“How many resets, relaunches and new ministers will it take before Daniel Andrews finally gets a safe, effective quarantine program up and running?

“Daniel Andrews has no plan to bring Victorians home safely and keep our state open – just a plan for more lockdowns and tighter restrictions.”

The head of Covid-19 Quarantine Victoria, Emma Cassar, said the figures alone didn’t tell the full story, adding that a breach could include a resident opening their door for longer than five seconds.

“Incidents are encouraged in CQV and we push our staff to report because these are the things that keep our program safe,” she told 3AW.

“A lot of these incidents are actually positive indicators … A lot of these are to actually give us confidence that the controls that we have in place are actually working.”

Ms Cassar said there had been three confirmed transmission events – occurring in January and February – within the program.

She added that the majority of quarantining residents were delightful, and that no escapees had occurred.