Coronavirus: Liberal Party powerbroker sick after event with Peter Dutton

NSW Liberal powerbroker placed on ventilator as he battles coronavirus in intensive care unit.

Lobbyist Joe Tannous.

NSW Liberal powerbroker and lobbyist Joe Tannous is seriously ill with coronavirus in the intensive care unit of a major Sydney hospital — just two weeks after ­attending a party fundraiser in which he had contact with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who earlier tested positive for COVID-19.

Mr Tannous, 50, was admitted to St George Hospital in Sydney’s south on Friday and sent straight to its ICU where he was placed on a ventilator to assist his breathing.

The businessman and longtime Liberal confirmed to The New Daily website a week ago that the NSW party’s head office contacted him by email on March 13 to say Mr Dutton had tested positive and urge him to consider taking a test if he showed symptoms because the pair had been at the same party event on March 10.

Mr Tannous seemed to suffer mild symptoms at the time, saying he had experienced a cough and some vomiting but no sore throat or fever. His condition deteriorated rapidly over the next three days, prompting urgent hospitalisation.

It has been speculated Mr Dutton could have passed on coronavirus to Mr Tannous, despite exhibiting no symptoms at the time, because the Home Affairs Minister was the only known person from the Liberal fundraiser event to have been diagnosed with COVID-19 afterwards.

However, Mr Tannous is ­reported as saying he did not know for certain who infected him, or how he caught the virus. While confirming he came into contract with Mr Dutton, the pair did not sit together at the event.

Mr Tannous sat next to Brisbane Broncos chairman Karl Morris, who has since self-isolated as a precaution. He is also understood to have taken a test, with the result showing as negative.

Nonetheless, the diagnosis of Mr Tannous with COVID-19 did reignite questions about whether Mr Dutton could have passed on the virus to federal cabinet, and whether Scott Morrison was well advised in deciding not to take a test. Mr Dutton attended a four-hour meeting of federal cabinet on March 10, the day of the NSW Liberal fundraiser where he came into contact with Mr Tannous.

A senior Liberal source close to Mr Tannous confirmed that the businessman was now “very sick” at St George Hospital. He said Mr Tannous’s family was rallying behind him, and he had also received considerable support from Sydney’s Maronite community.

Mr Tannous, a father of three, has a Maronite Lebanese family background but has been more ­recently associated with an evangelical church.