Coronavirus quarantine inquiry: Then there were two: will anyone own up?

Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville gives evidence at the hotel quarantine inquiry on Wednesday.

As each day of Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry passes, the number of known unknowns grows.

Not only did Jobs Minister Martin Pakula not know who made the decision to engage private­ security companies at quarantine hotels, he didn’t know his own department was entering into contracts with private firms to provide the security.

Giving evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday, Pakula said he could not recall “specifically” how he became aware private security was engaged and contracted by his department.

“It may have been from media reportage, it may have been from a conversation, but I don’t have a specific recollection of how I became­ aware of that,” he said.

Police Minister Lisa Neville told the inquiry she also did not know who decided­ to engage priv­ate security, but believed the decision had been made before she first heard about it at a March 27 meeting with Emergency Man­agement Commissioner Andrew Crisp and then chief police commissioner Graham Ashton.

Neville said she believed Crisp told her about the use of private security but Crisp has said it does not think he first raised it. Neville said Ashton should have been ­consulted before the decision was made but he wasn’t.

So with Health Minister Jenny Mikakos and Premier Daniel Andrew­s the final two witnesses due to front the inquiry, we still don’t know who made the decis­ion to engage security guards.

Perhaps the most telling exchange on Wednesday came after Pakula said it would be preferable that the agency which had overall responsibility also had contract­ual management responsibility.

On March 27, his Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions was told it would be the lead agency for the quarantine program. This led to a frantic night of work by departmental staff sourcing security­ and the signing of contracts with private security.

As early as the next day, the Department of Health and Human Services assumed the lead role, but DHHS secretary Kym Peake subsequently maintained the quarantine program was a joint operation with DJPR responsible for hotels, security, cleaning, food and a helpline. ­

Pakula appeared not keen to embrace what Peake called this ”shared accountability”.

Asked by inquiry chairwoman Jennifer Coate for his view on the DHHS position that accountability be shared across the two ­departments, he said it was quite clear from March 28 that DHHS was the control agency and DJPR had a role assisting with some discrete responsibilities.

In short, Pakula seemed to be effectively rebuffing the attempt by DHHS to share ownership. And why wouldn’t he, given what happened? Mikakos is due to ­appear before the inquiry on Thursday in what shapes as an important moment for her political career. Pakula has increased her degree of difficulty.