Coronavirus: NSW offers free training for 2000 hotel security recruits

The NSW government is offering free training for thousands of new security guards as it struggles to meet the demands of its hotel quarantine scheme.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Joel Carrett

The NSW government is offering free training for thousands of new security guards as it struggles to meet the demands of its hotel quarantine scheme, with its weekly cap on international ­arrivals increasing to 3000 from Monday.

The creation of 2000 new ­places for certificate 2 courses in security operations comes after NSW Police approached the state government seeking to boost the workforce behind the scheme.

Promotional material for the free training scheme promised “immediate employment” in the hotel quarantine program.

Documents obtained by The Australian late last year revealed NSW hotel quarantine was struggling to meet demands for guards.

“Key learnings and operational indicators suggest that the current security guard force is limited and extending beyond 820 deployment per day is unreliable,” the operational update and meeting minutes dated October 30 read.

Premier ­Gladys Berejiklian on Wednesday announced that the state would increase its weekly cap on international arrivals to 3000 from Monday because “it’s the right thing to do” and the system could handle it.

“While we have increasing numbers of people coming from Monday through Sydney airport and while we do have the more contagious strains of the virus ­becoming more prominent … it’s ­really important for us to stay vigilant,” Ms Berejiklian said.

NSW Police Security Licensing and Enforcement Directorate assistant director Lisa Stockley, in a LinkedIn post, said the new training scheme came after SLED was “successful in initiating a funding project”.

The three-week training is aimed at regulating standards across the quarantine workforce.

Because the training is funded by the NSW government as part of its JobTrainer scheme, applicants save more than $1000 in fees.

An Education Department spokesman said the training would be “complemented by important infection prevention and control training” that would be audited by SLED. Recent weeks have seen several hotel quarantine workers across Australia contract COVID-19 because of inadequate ­infection control.

Graduates can apply for a NSW security licence but will not be directly employed by NSW Police; instead, they will work with existing security companies contracted to the program.

More than 130,000 people have gone through NSW’s hotel quarantine scheme since it started on March 27 last year.

The Australian late last year reported that at least 169 guards had been dismissed for various indiscretions since the scheme began.

But NSW Police said in a statement “the current needs of the hotel quarantine program are being met” despite the briefings.

One private security firm working in the quarantine scheme is being investigated by SLED for its connection with failed ventures that went bankrupt owing taxpayers millions of dollars.