Coronavirus: Labor defends abattoir outbreak secrecy

The Victorian government has ­defended its decision not to name a Melbourne abattoir linked to 34 cases of COVID-19.

The Cedar Meats plant in Brooklyn, Melbourne. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

The Victorian government has ­defended its decision not to name a Melbourne abattoir linked to 34 cases of COVID-19, amid revelations its owners had previously made a $15,000 donation to the Labor Party.

The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Sunday a meat processing facility had been linked to 15 cases of COVID-19, but refused to name Cedar Meats in Melbourne’s west, despite on the same day revealing Meadowglen Primary School in Melbourne’s north had been linked to one case.

On Monday, the department revealed a further 19 cases at the Brooklyn meatworks, after Cedar Meats’ owners confirmed the facility was at the centre of the cluster.

Australian Electoral Commission records show Cedar Meats made a $15,000 donation to the Victorian ALP in 2014. Premier Daniel Andrews said he had “no idea about those matters” when asked about the ­donation on Monday, referring questions to the ALP’s state secretariat.

Mr Andrews said the naming of organisations at the centre of COVID-19 clusters was a decision for DHHS, despite Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton last week telling radio host Neil Mitchell that the decision was “really both” a government and DHHS decision.

Mr Andrews said some businesses were being named and “some are not”.

“That’s not a judgment that’s made by any minister, that is a judgment that’s made by the public health team, and it’s made on one basis and one basis only: is naming the business critical to tracing all the people that might have the virus as a result of an outbreak in a business?”

Mr Andrews said Consumer Affairs Minister Marlene Kairouz, who shares a common Lebanese Maronite surname with the owners of Cedar Meats, was not connected with the family. Cedar Meats general manager Tony Kairouz said he had become aware on Monday, April 27, that one of more than 350 employees at his third-generation family business had contracted COVID-19.

The worker tested positive after being rushed to Sunshine Hospital as a result of an unrelated workplace accident, with the original source of the cluster unknown.

Mr Kairouz said Cedar Meats had been informed on Wednesday that four staff working in one area of the plant had contracted COVID-19. All staff had been ­tested by Friday and the plant had shut. “We have in no way sought not to be transparent,” he said.

“All meat processed at our ­facilities is processed in accordance with Australian standards for food safety and our customers can be confident that the meat processed at our facilities is safe to eat.”

Cedar Meats sells mutton, lamb, goat and veal, exporting to the EU, North and South America, Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East and Africa.

Rural publication Sheep Central last month reported a mutton shipment from Cedar Meats had been exported to the COVID-19 epicentre of Wuhan as the backload on a flight that arrived in Australia from China with medical supplies.

Professor Sutton defended the decision not to name Cedar Meats. “It has always been the case that if we need people in the community to understand where they might have been exposed to a cluster or an outbreak in cases, that we identify those sites,” he said.

“If we are following up everyone, if we have the names and contact details of everyone in the site and we’re not concerned about the general community being ­exposed, then there’s no specific public health reason to name those places.”

Professor Sutton said meatworks were “particularly vulnerable” to outbreaks of COVID-19. “We’ve seen from the US extremely large outbreaks in meatworks, in some ways because they are forced to work closer than some other workplaces,” he said.