Former health department secretary Jane Halton urges Scott Morrison to do more on quarantine

Scott Morrison’s hand-picked health expert has slammed the Prime Minister’s approach to both the vaccine rollout and hotel quarantine.

Scott Morrison’s hand-picked health expert, who he appointed to review hotel quarantine, has urged the Prime Minister and state premiers to stop talking and start acting, warning she’s “disappointed” another state is in lockdown after they failed to act on her call for urgent changes.

Former health department secretary Jane Halton has told news.com.au that the time for talking was over, and action was needed urgently to improve hotel quarantine and stop failures sparking covid outbreaks and state lockdowns.

Clearly frustrated that another covid outbreak that sparked Victoria’s lockdown was caused by problems in hotel quarantine, Ms Halton said the delay in action could no longer be justified. She finalised her report to the Prime Minister urging changes last October.

“I don’t think we should wait,’’ Ms Halton told news.com.au.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been urged to take action on hotel quarantine. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

RELATED: Scary new Victorian transmission revealed

“We actually have to improve our game. That’s also with the vaccine but the hotel quarantine scheme needs to be fit for purpose.”

She also warned that one of reasons why governments needed to act was that quarantine after international travel was likely to be a feature of the system for a long time.

“Clearly, this is going to be around for a while,’’ she said.

WA Premier Mark McGowan also lashed out at the current hotel quarantine system, insisting it is “not fit for purpose” and urging the PM to act.

“It just goes to show that hotel quarantine was not built for these purposes. This is something we are doing our very best, our utmost to cope with, but there is always risk. That is not the preferred policy,’’ he said.

Earlier, Ms Halton told ABC Radio National she was “disappointed” that the Prime Minister and state premiers had not moved more quickly on the recommendations of her report.

“Well, I’m disappointed that it certainly appears that we don’t have continual adoption of best practice right across the system,’’ she said.

Jane Halton tells news.com.au that we need to do better with the vaccine and hotel quarantine. Picture: AAP

RELATED: Sign virus is spreading undetected

“One of the things I talked about in October last year is the need to make sure best practice is adopted. This virus is not staying still waiting for us to catch up with it and get in front of it, the virus continues to change. That means our systems need to continue to adapt. And certainly, as it’s been reported, some of the breaches we have seen recently are a direct reflection of an absence of best practice in some of these systems. So to say that I’m disappointed about that I think is the minimum, I would say.”

Ms Halton said she recognised, given the volumes of returning travellers, that it is not possible to completely stop hotel quarantine in some form.

“Well, I think inevitably, the numbers of people who have to come back to Australia, I mean, it’s very difficult to have all of those people accommodated in facilities such as Howard Springs,” she said.

“Now, it’s good that we’re going to get Howard Springs to 2000 places. It’s also, I think, a bit perplexing that it’s taken us this long.

“I also think it’s good that we’re now hearing positive signs that there may well be an agreement with Victoria.”

ABC host Hamish McDonald then asked her: “I know you’re someone who in Canberra has been known to be frank. Would your frank and fearless advice to the Government now be, ‘All right, pull your socks up, get on with this’?”

“Certainly, that is my advice. That we should be getting on with this as a priority. Definitely,’’ Ms Halton said.