Coronavirus: Private guards decision made early, says Daniel Andrews

The decision to use private security guards for hotel quarantine was made before a ‘pivotal meeting’ Daniel Andrews concedes.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed the decision to engage private security guards in his state’s bungled hotel quarantine program had already been made ahead of what was described by one of his government’s most senior public servants this week as a “very pivotal meeting”.

Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions Secretary Simon Phemister told the Victorian Parliamentary Accounts and Estimates Committee’s COVID-19 inquiry on Wednesday that the decision to use the guards was made at the meeting, which began at 4.30pm on March 27.

However, The Australian revealed on Friday that Mr Andrews had mentioned the use of “private security” to “monitor compliance” at the 3pm press conference at which he announced the hotel quarantine scheme, earlier that same day.

The 4:30pm meeting was attended by multiple agencies, including two DJPR staff members, but The Weekend Australian understands no Andrews government ministers nor their staff were present.

Asked on Friday whether the decision to engage security guards had been made prior to the meeting, Mr Andrews said: “Well I certainly wouldn’t have talked about something that hadn’t happened or wasn’t talked about.”

Asked when the decision had been made, Mr Andrews said: “I’d need to come back to you, because I don’t want to make up a date.”

Dozens of COVID-19 cases in private security guards at two quarantine hotels have since been genomically linked to what Mr Andrews has described as “at least a significant proportion” of Victoria’s deadly second wave of COVID-19 cases, with Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton saying it is possible all of the second wave is attributable to the breaches.

Mr Andrews also revealed the decision to rescind Mr Crisp’s June 24 request for 850 ADF personnel to assist with hotel quarantine 16 hours after it was issued was made by the eight-member Crisis Council of Cabinet he chairs.

In the request, Mr Crisp noted, “ADF personnel in other states have proven to be uniquely suited to roles and functions being carried out within the current environment.”

Asked what had changed in 16 hours, Mr Andrews said: “What’s missing from (Mr Crisp’s) letter, and maybe he didn’t have an awareness of this, but we were considering a whole range of different groups of people, a whole range of different resources that could be deployed to this task, and the ultimate landing not very long after … we made a decision that Corrections Victoria staff would be the best staff to do that.”

Asked who had ultimately made the decision, Mr Andrews said: “It would have been the Crisis Council of Cabinet on advice from various officials.”

“At the end of the day the request was essentially superseded by the fact that we had been talking and then we decided that Corrections Victoria, so the people who run our jails, were in our judgment, they’re already here, they could do the job, and no criticism of anybody in the defence force, but I think we can all agree that the people who run our jails are uniquely qualified to keep people locked up,” Mr Andrews said.

Earlier on Friday, the federal Defence Department confirmed on the record that 100 Australian Defence Force troops were on standby for “potential requests” for assistance with Victoria’s hotel quarantine program.

Mr Andrews has previously stated that the troops were neither offered nor sought, but on Friday stated that there was “perhaps the separation between the different roles that ADF have played. One operation relates to quarantine, one operation relates to checking that people are in their homes.”

Asked repeatedly whether he could rule out offers having been made of ADF assistance with hotel quarantine, Mr Andrews said: “You‘d need to go back to (Mr Crisp).