Security boss reveals chaos inside bungled hotel quarantine
In an explosive interview, a security boss at the hotel responsible for Victoria’s second coronavirus wave reveals it was in chaos in the early days of the quarantine program, while a submission he gave to the hotel inquiry has not been accepted as evidence.
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The owner of the company which first ran security at the hotel responsible for Victoria’s second wave has revealed the chaos in the early days of the quarantine program.
Andrew McLean, whose company Elite Protection Services ran security at Rydges on Swanston, has spoken of the breakdown in command, breaches of protocols and the fact that he made a submission to the hotel inquiry that has not been accepted as evidence.
Mr McLean provided a 500-page submission to the inquiry headed by former judge Jennifer Coate but was never called to give evidence or have his submission tendered as evidence.
EPS had been subcontracted by the Sydney-based Unified Security which had been awarded the bulk of the hotel security work in a contract worth more than $30m.
In an explosive interview to air on Sky News Australia on Sunday night, Mr McLean reveals the inner working of the early days of the quarantine program.
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“I don’t think any of us really knew how important this was, from a perspective of how dangerous the whole COVID situation was going to be,” he said.
“I literally didn’t leave Rydges. I came home for a bit of a sleep but for the first two weeks, I didn’t leave. So it was red hot. When I say it was hot, it was a high-pressure environment. You had multiple departments having different ideas about the way things should be run.”
Mr McLean said his company was dealing with the fact there were not established protocols about what guests were able to do.
“There was conversations and conflict between whether the guests were able to have fresh-air walks,” he said.
“There was conversations and conflict about whether they should have Uber Eats deliveries, whether they should have alcohol in their rooms, who should be delivering the stuff to their rooms.
“It was just an ongoing conversation and obviously, we were trying to manage all of the things that needed to be managed, but there’s a mental health aspect of people being shut down in those rooms, to people with really heavy smoking habits, not being able to go out for a cigarette, other things, as silly as somebody bought themselves a coffee machine and had it delivered.”
EPS was sacked by Unified Security in early May after a complaint of sexual harassment was made against one of its staff, an allegation Mr McLean rejects.
In its submission to the inquiry the company outlined breaches in quarantine protocols and allegations that the company was warned by Unified over “overuse” of PPE.
It also submitted allegations from security guards of payment irregularities at the Crown Promenade which was also under the control of Unified Security. But the submission was never published by the inquiry and Mr McLean was not called to give evidence.
“I submitted it and lodged it, and got the acceptance from the lawyers,” he said. “They even contacted me to tell me that it was there. And also they gave us updates through the inquiry about when ... they could want me to speak to us. So I was sitting there waiting to be called any minute, and it didn’t happen.”
In the interview, Mr McLean alleges DHHS’s decision to place quarantining Cedar Meats workers in the same hotel as returning travellers compromised safety. Because the Cedar Meat workers were quarantining voluntarily, they could ignore directions given to them by security guards.
He is particularly scathing of a written direction given to them outlining their rights.
“That document basically shut down every single policy we’d put in place about safety because it basically is a voluntary quarantine policy,” he said. “So … if a quarantine guest goes to leave, my guard calls the police, they’re apprehended and arrested.
“If a Cedar Meats work person decides they’re going to leave, we call the police, they show that document, the police can’t touch them.”
The Coate Inquiry will report in December after seeking a six-week extension last week.
Peta Credlin’s special investigation, Deadly Decisions: Victoria’s Hotel Quarantine Catastrophe, will be on Sky News on Foxtel at 8pm tonight.
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