Coronavirus news: What led to Victoria’s hotel quarantine stuff-up

It is the decision that led to Victoria’s explosion of COVID-19 cases. And this could be what caused the crucial quarantine mistake.

Victoria Police did not want to run the state’s hotel quarantine scheme and “their preference became the outcome” that resulted in the disastrous decision to use security guards, an inquiry has been told.

In closing submissions to the inquiry today, counsel assisting the inquiry Rachel Ellyard has offered a damning recap of the evidence and the failure by political leaders, officials and police to take responsibility for the decision.

The decision to use private security can be traced back to three crucial meetings on March 27 as officials rushed to “operationalise” the Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement.

Before the Prime Minister had even announced it, then Victorian Police Commissioner Graham Ashton sent a text message to the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw insisting the AFP sort it out.

“Mate. Question. Why wouldn’t AFP guard people At The Hotel?” Ashton wrote to Kershaw at 1:12pm on March 27.

Ms Ellyard said it was clear that the reluctance of the VicPol to take the job on was a major “contributing factor” to a creeping assumption that private security would do the job.

“The expression of a preference can readily be understood to have given the clear impression that police weren’t going to do it and there needed to be an alternative,” Ms Ellyard said.

“Their preference became the outcome.

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“It wasn’t Victoria Police’s decision, we don’t put it that highly, but Victoria Police’s clear position expressed in that meeting, that private security would be, in its view or its preference, the appropriate first line of enforcement, has to be understood as a substantial contributing factor to that creeping consensus.”

Mr Ashton has previously told the inquiry that while he was “comfortable” with private security being used he did not make the decision or have a preference.

But Ms Ellyard invited the inquiry to find Mr Ashton may have misremembered some moments in the busy day as officials raced to implement the scheme.

Counsel assisting the inquiry Rachel Ellyard.

“Mr Ashton says, also in his recollection by a text message that he sent, that he understood that private security were going to be used and he seems to have communicated that understanding to Commissioner (Reece) Kershaw of the Australian Federal Police,’’ she said.

“That text exchange also suggests that Mr Ashton at the time he sent those texts thought it was the Department of Premier and Cabinet who had set up that deal. He couldn’t remember in evidence what his source of information was but it seems he texted that understanding at that time.

“Mr Eccles, the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, told you that he didn’t know about any such deal at that time, the Premier told you something else.

“There’s no documents that the Board has seen that would suggest there was any such plan in place at that early time of 1.30pm.”

“Mr Ashton’s certainty the decision had been made and communicated with him is at odds with the understanding of everyone else at that State Control Centre meeting, it is odd that it wasn’t mentioned that a decision had been taken if indeed it had been,’’ Ms Ellyard said.

“It is at odds with (Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew) Crisp’s text to Assistant Commissioner (Mick) Grainger. And so it may well be that Mr Ashton is misremembering the sequence of events.”

Police Minister Lisa Neville’s best recollection, she said, was that Mr Crisp raised the question of private security.

“Mr Ashton says to you that at the Secretaries Board meeting he clarified that private security was the first security option. That doesn’t appear in the formal minutes but in the notes it does appear,’’; Ms Ellyard said.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton.

Then, by the time the State Control Centre met at 4.30pm, a recording suggests that in that meeting the first mention of private security was from Assistant Police Commissioner Mick Grainger, in response to a request for comments about resourcing security.

“Later in the same meeting, Mr Crisp, who hadn’t been present for that exchange, comes back into the room and directly asks Assistant Commissioner Grainger, by way of confirmation, whether it’s Victoria Police’s preference that private security be the first line, and police respond as required, and in response, Assistant Commissioner Grainger is record he as saying, “Absolutely, that’s our preference.”

“What we know from evidence is that immediately prior it would seem to that exchange inside the room, Mr Crisp had left the room and had a conversation with Mr Ashton and as a result of that conversation he had sent a text message to Mr Grainger stating that Mr Ashton had made it clear in the conversation that he had made it clear in VSB that private security is the first security option.”

Ms Ellyard said it was clear that “no-one wanted to own” the decision to use private security.

“But the Victorian public would rightly expect that those making such a decision in a group would know they were making the decision,’’ she said.

“But it seems that if the decision was made in that State Control Centre meeting, no-one knew they were making it and no-one wanted to own it.”

“As a matter of proper governance, we ought to be able to say who’s accountable for that decision. It ought to be able to be identified,’’ she said.

“We submit to you that the use of private security isn’t really a decision at all. It’s a conclusion that was arrived at by way of a creeping assumption that took hold over a period perhaps of a couple of hours and that wasn’t questioned by anyone.”