How Australia’s hotel quarantine system was left exposed by rushed 24-hour decision

Our most successful virus containment method was the envy of the world just a few weeks ago, but in just 24 hours it was brutally exposed.

Cast your mind back just a few weeks and you’ll remember that Australia’s quarantine system for overseas travellers was the envy of the world.

As coronavirus cases skyrocketed in other nations, ours appeared to be largely contained within the confines of hotel rooms.

While other nations continued to allow overseas travellers to roam city streets, potentially infecting everyone they came into contact with, ours were out of harm’s way, quarantined in hotels for 14 days.

It appeared our leaders had come up with a perfect system.

And in NSW at least, it still appears to be working as it should. Almost all of the state’s new confirmed cases this week came from people in hotel quarantine.

However, a vastly different story is unfolding south of the border in Victoria.

There it has been revealed that a rushed response cobbled together in a frantic 24-hour period has led to widespread community transmission.

Take Friday’s new case figures for example. They show that only one of the state’s 66 new cases was detected in the hotel quarantine system.

The state government is scrambling to contain outbreaks in the Melbourne’s north and west, many of which have been traced directly back to isolation hotels.

Not only that, cases from the outbreaks have reached as far as Sydney and the Northern Territory after they spent two weeks in hotel quarantine in Melbourne.

In short, the seemingly perfect system has spectacularly backfired.

RELATED: All the latest coronavirus news

Dozens of cases have come about as a result of security breaches in Victorian hotels. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Critics have pointed out there has been one crucial difference in the way Victoria carried out its hotel quarantine system to the rest of the nation.

In NSW for example, the state government deployed ADF personnel to run hotel quarantine and no workers at quarantine hotels in NSW have tested positive to COVID-19.

Other states have deployed troops and police in their hotel quarantine, sometimes alongside security.

But in Victoria, the state government decided to use private contractors after senior state bureaucrats were given little more than 24 hours to put a plan in place.

The frantic period began after the national cabinet approved hotel quarantine system on March 27 and Victoria scrambled to put together a plan for travellers flying into Tullamarine from midnight the following day.

This week it was revealed that they bypassed the usual tender process when hiring three security companies to carry out the work.

“We did it in 24 hours, decisions were made by various agencies, and I’m not going to throw anybody under the bus, rightly or wrongly,” Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville told reporters this week.

Since then there have been significant outbreaks at two hotels — the Rydges on Swanston and the Stamford Plaza — leading to widespread community infections.

Allegations about what took place at these hotels are becoming wilder by the day.

This week it was alleged guards at the hotels had sex with guests, shook hands with each other and shared lifts and cigarette lighters.

Quarantined families allegedly were allowed to visit other guests to play card games, while it is claimed guards were offered “five minutes” of training before starting the job.

Kazim Shah from the United Workers Union said the use of private subcontractors without medical training to run the system meant many saw it as a “money-making” exercise.

“What happened was that the work was given to security companies which was then subleased to subcontractors where there was cost-cutting happening and they were making money out of this,” he explained to the ABC.

“There was no training provided to these security guards which were placed in these hotels which have very highly infectious disease (in them).”

Even after an offer of 1000 ADF personnel from the federal government, the Victorian Police Minister insisted Corrections Victoria staff were best placed to run hotel quarantine when international flights – diverted from Melbourne for two weeks – return.

Premier Daniel Andrews has repeatedly fended off questions this week about why his government didn’t use troops or police officers to help run his state’s hotel quarantine system.

His has said he wants to wait for the results of an inquiry costing taxpayers $3 million.

Premier Daniel Andrews is refusing to say why he didn’t use troops to help with the system. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

On Friday he said the idea that ADF members were offered up to run the system across Australia was “simply wrong”.

He wouldn’t say which of his departments was responsible for the security contracts. He wouldn’t say whether those security contractors were still being paid.

Instead he said that he will wait until the results of the independent inquiry are made public before making further statements on what went wrong.

He insisted he is not shirking responsibility for the stuff-up and that he basically had more pressing issues at hand with the state’s mounting active cases.

“I am the leader of this government and I’d take responsibility and have accountability for these and all matters. Understand that, I have never walked away from that, nor would I,” he told reporters.

“The best thing in my judgment is to focus on the things you can control and none of us can go back and change any of that.

Community cases continue to rise in Victoria. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

“We’ve got to be focused on what is confronting us right now and that is an unacceptably high number of cases and the real risk that we are not just shutting down 10 postcodes.”

The program has now been placed under the supervision of prison service Corrections Victoria, while retired judge Jennifer Coate looks into the debacle with a reporting date set for September 24.

However, critics have called for heads to roll much sooner over the handling of the situation.

Victorian opposition leader Michael O’Brien specifically called for Health Minister Jenny Mikakos to be sacked.

“This has been a complete and utter debacle,” Mr O’Brien said. “It’s time for the health minister who’s responsible for this mess to pay the price, and she should pay the price by being sacked.