Chief health officer Brett Sutton slammed as ‘starstruck clown’ by former federal Labor minister

A former Labor minister has labelled Victoria’s chief health officer a “starstruck clown” for describing stage 4 modelling as “guesswork”.

Former federal Labor minister Stephen Conroy has blasted Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton as “starstruck” and a “clown” for describing Victoria’s coronavirus modelling as guesswork.

Mr Conroy – who served in the Rudd and Gillard ministries – told Sky News host Peta Credlin that Professor Sutton needed to get on and do his job out of the media spotlight.

“He needs to stop doing media appearances and start reading files on his desk, and he really does deserve to have an absolute caning behind the scenes for his loose talk,” Mr Conroy said.

“If I had been in the room when my chief medical officer had stood up and said, ‘Oh no we didn’t really do the modelling out six weeks, it was a bit of guesswork’, I mean this bloke needs more than a media adviser to help him at the moment, he is starstruck, loving the media spotlight.

“Well mate, get on and do your job, read your files and start getting to the nitty-gritty of the issues you’ve been supervising.”

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Former Labor senator Stephen Conroy says Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton should get to the ‘nitty-gritty’ of his job.

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Mr Conroy said the criteria of less than five cases over 14 days as the trigger for easing Victoria’s harsh lockdown restrictions hadn’t been achieved in many places around the world.

At the daily press conference on Sunday, when Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions were extended for a further two weeks, Prof Sutton conceded the initial six-week lockdown figure was “in some respect, guesswork”.

He said it was hard to model how case numbers would fall under stage 4 restrictions given there wasn’t “experience anywhere in the world of going through another wave” like Victoria’s.

Mr Conroy resigned as an Australian senator in September 2016.

The Department of Health and Human Services and Prof Sutton’s office have been contacted for comment.