Hotel quarantine inquiry: Bad government led to diabolical health outcome

Illustration: John Spooner

Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry has failed to uncover who was responsible for a decision that allowed the state’s second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to spiral out of control with deadly results, but it has damned the Andrews government as irresponsible and incompetent.

Premier Daniel Andrews’ apology issued in the wake of the release of the final report on Monday does not reflect the scope of his government’s failure, forensically detailed over two volumes by inquiry head Jennifer Coate. The bottom line from the Coate report is that the Andrews government’s actions leading to the state’s second wave of infections of COVID-19 was “at odds with any normal application of the principles of the Westminster system of responsible government”.

Coate correctly rejects any temptation to excuse the government’s deficiencies due to the unusual and fast-paced nature of the pandemic. The fact that people worked hard or had wanted to do the right thing “does not excuse the deficiencies found in the program”, Coate said.

The heart of Victoria’s second wave of the pandemic that left some 800 people dead has been forensically traced to the failure of hotel quarantine. This failure was due in large measure to the use of private security guards that lacked the proper training or understanding of public health.

The bigger shock, both for the inquiry and the public, has been the failure of the Victorian public sector to explain what the decision-making process was that led to such a diabolical outcome.

Coate says a decision of such significance for a program, which ultimately involved the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars and the employment of thousands of people, had neither a responsible minister nor a transparent rationale for why that course was adopted. It plainly does not seem to accord with the principles of proper governance.

The influence of Victoria Police on the state decision-making is laid bare. Coate says critical to the decision was a preference expressed by then chief commissioner Graham Ashton that private security perform the role and Victoria Police provide the “back-up”. The police preference was adopted without discussion or dissent. At no time was there any consideration of the respective merits of private security versus police versus Australian Defence Force personnel. “Instead, an early mention of private security rather than police grew into a settled position, adopted by acquiescence at the SCC meeting,” the Coate report says.

Evidence to the inquiry outlines how failures in the hotel quarantine system using private contractors led to such disastrous consequences for the Victorian community. The expert evidence, based on genomic testing, was that 99 per cent of Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 cases in the community came from transmission events related to returned travellers infecting people working at two quarantine hotels, the Rydges and the Stamford Plaza.

Coate said: “What I can, and do, find is that the ‘second wave’ of COVID-19 that so catastrophically affected Victoria was linked to transmission events out of both Rydges and Stamford via returned travellers to personnel on-site, who then transmitted COVID-19 into the community … I do so having accepted the uncontroverted genomic and epidemiological evidence of (Professor Ben) Howden and Dr (Charles) Alpren and their conclusions from that evidence.”

The scandal of the inquiry is that the more than 70,000 documents produced could not demonstrate how the decision to engage private contractors was made or by whom. The decision did not follow the normal process of the Expenditure Review Committee.

Coate says the people of Victoria should understand, with clarity, how it was that such a decision to spend millions of dollars of public money came about. She says the public should be able to be satisfied that the action taken was a considered one that addressed the benefits, risks and options available in arriving at such a decision.

In his evidence, the Premier agreed that the question of how the decision to use private contractors was made should be capable of being answered. The head of the Victorian Public Service at the time, the then Secretary of DPC, acknowledged it was a “fair point”. The alarming finding by Coate is that the decision was made without proper analysis or even a clear articulation that it was being made at all.

The Coate inquiry does not make any recommendations for legal liability or prosecution. Coate says the question of causation as a matter of law is one, if it is to be pursued, that must be properly pleaded before a court, seized of the jurisdiction, where the rules of evidence and procedure apply and arguments and submissions on the law can be made and ruled upon.

The lack of any recommendation for prosecution should not be enough to let the Andrews government off scot-free. As Premier for six years and a former health minister, it is unreasonable for Mr Andrews to now argue that failings were made by a bureaucracy he inherited and over which he had no control. With the ravages of the second wave now passed, Mr Andrews enjoys the good wishes of many for having acted to suppress the second-wave outbreak.

The verdict, however, is now in. The actions of the Andrews administration were the opposite of good government. A small outbreak was magnified by incompetence. There should be no prizes for saving people from a disaster of one’s own making.