With Victoria in shambles, it’s time to test the constitution’s quarantine powers

In the spotlight: Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

As public servants break ranks to tell the truth, the magnitude of the breakdown in important segments of the Victorian government and public service is becoming a national disaster.

Unless Victoria quickly takes the steps that have been taken in NSW, then it’s time for the federal government to explore using the combination of its quarantine and money powers to take control of at least parts of the mess. And members of the ALP in Victoria need to face the simple fact that they need different leadership. Premier Daniel Andrews tried hard, but it was beyond him. In the public company arena, the change would have already taken place.

As I will explain below, other states have shown that there is a series of clear steps required. When governments take those steps, communities don’t require the severe lockdown that Victoria has announced.

Victoria is trying to take one of the steps – contact tracing – but even there the people preparing the severe lock down did not know what other arms of the public service were doing.

The real cause if the problem is that Victoria bloated its public service creating no clear lines of authority and promoting on criteria other than ability.

Long before the virus hit the state its two major infrastructure projects – rail and the Westgate tunnel – fell victim to the broken decision-making process. The government spent $42m on a committee to determine that there was unlikely to be substantial onshore gas in Victoria, while instructing it not to look where immense reserves of non-fracked gas existed. It was Gilbert and Sullivan at their best. The nation and Victoria copped sky rocketing fuel prices as a result. The list of bad decisions goes on and so the state was in no position to manage a virus crisis. Public servants are revealing details of the inevitable chaos each day at the inquiry into the hotel quarantine fiasco. But nothing has changed.

Sutton’s bombshell

Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton dropped a bombshell by stating that he didn’t make the decision to put an 8pm curfew on Victorians living in Melbourne. Clearly people from other sections of the public service made the decision, again illustrating that the Victorian public service had no clear decision making structure.

Sutton also quietly slipped out another stunning revelation – that the elements of the Victorian public service in the health area are still using faxes. GPs cited as the excuse. Somebody needs to tell the department and any delinquent GPs that there is a thing called the internet and electronic communication.

One of the state’s biggest blunders took place when it undertook extensive testing but didn’t ensure the information about infections reached people quickly enough, so they abandoned quarantine.

Sutton’s bombshell that the fax is still an essential part of the Victorian public service was not dropped accidentally. Victoria desperately needs to increase its testing rate but there is little point in doing that if it still can’t get the results quickly to those that are being tested. Victoria’s testing was deplorably low this week because it is still only testing those with symptoms, when a large number of infected people do not have symptoms.

Constitutional solution

Thankfully our founding fathers provided an answer. Section 51 (ix) of the Constitution provides that the Commonwealth can pass laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to quarantine.

The scope of this power remains uncertain, but it appears to cover the prevention or control of the introduction, establishment or spread of diseases or pests that will or could cause significant damage to human beings, animals, plants, other aspects of the environment or economic activities. The Commonwealth needs to use this power to control Victorian testing.

The same power could obviously be used to manage the quarantine of people with the infection where, again, Victoria can’t do it properly.

The good news is that Victoria after countless warnings has finally woken up that its contact tracing is a shambles. But again its chaotic decision making process heads the state in different directions. One report says that Victoria is looking at an international software program used in Queensland and South Australia that was, of course, rejected by Victoria previously. But then there is another report that says that Australian defence officials and Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel have been examining the Victorian contact tracing system and are now travelling to NSW to gain lessons from the system that works there. I hope Victoria backs Finkel and the defence forces.

A nation divided

The great danger for the nation of Australia is only partly the economic consequences of Victoria’s mismanagement.

We now have a series of “nations” that are operating in a similar way to pre 1900 – borders are shut. And it is all caused because one “nation” couldn’t manage a crisis while the neighbouring “nations” could manage it. And because this particular crisis involves large numbers of deaths the “nations” acted in their own interest and those of their voters. And its worked to contain the virus.

There is no point in Prime Minister Scott Morrison lecturing states about borders because their populations don’t want to be infected by the suffering created by the chaos of the Victorian government and public service.

JobKeeper and JobSeeker help ease the symptoms but not the cause - the Victorian government. Again 120 years ago our wonderful founding fathers appear to have given the 2020 Prime Minister the powers he needs. Now he has got to use them.