Shutdown Mark II: Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos refuses to answer coronavirus questions

Jenny Mikakos has refused to give a verbal answer to a single question during question time, as the state faces its worst health and economic crisis | WATCH

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos arrives at the Legislative Council in Melbourne, where she refused to answer questions on her pandemic response on Tuesday, Picture: AAP

Victoria’s Health Minister has refused to answer a single question about her handling of the coronavirus pandemic — including questions about her knowledge of the state’s bungled hotel quarantine program — at the first sitting of state parliament since Melbourne was plunged into its worst ever health and economic crisis.

Jenny Mikakos responded to seven questions and their supplementaries during Tuesday afternoon’s Legislative Council question time by saying she would provide a written answer on Wednesday.

Ms Mikakos’s move, which was slammed by the opposition and crossbenchers as “smug”, ”arrogant” and ”anti-democratic”, came after Labor cited advice from Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton in using its numbers to prevent the state’s Legislative Assembly from sitting, but was unable to do the same in the upper house, where the government holds 17 of 40 seats, the crossbench 12 and the Coalition 11.

It was the first sitting of state parliament since June 18, weeks before Victoria’s coronavirus numbers escalated to reach 6706 active cases on Tuesday, and it will be the last sitting before September.

 

The parliamentary antics came as thousands of Victorian workplaces prepare to shut down for six weeks from midnight on Wednesday night, costing the jobs of at least 250,000 people, after Premier Daniel Andrews made the decision to move to Stage Four Lockdown, curfew, and suspension of “non-essential” work following days of new case numbers averaging more than 500.

Amid confusion over many of the measures, the Andrews government moved to plug a loophole, unique to Victoria, which until Tuesday had allowed COVID-19 positive people to leave their homes to exercise, courtesy of the state’s Chart of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

Premier Daniel Andrews also announced a new $4,957 fine for people with coronavirus or their close contacts who breach the requirement to isolate for a second time, revealing Australian Defence Force and Department of Health and Human Services teams had found 800 of 3000 people they doorknocked, who should have been isolating, were not home.

Ms Mikakos and Local Government and Veterans Minister Shaun Leane were the only government ministers who faced questions during upper house question time, with Agriculture Minister and government upper house leader Jaclyn Symes, Small Business Minister Jaala Pulford and Training, Skills and Higher Education Minister Gayle Tierney all absenting themselves on the basis that they were regional Victorian MPs who should not travel to Melbourne during the pandemic.

Opposition Health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier opened questions, asking Ms Mikakos about Victoria’s bungled hotel quarantine program, to which a high proportion if not all of the state’s current caseload of more than 6500 active cases have been linked.

“On what date in March or April were you advised that there were serious issues with the hotel security program?” Ms Crozier asked.

Ms Mikakos began her answer by saying she believed it was important to put on the record that her presence in the chamber “should not be interpreted by anybody in this chamber or in the Victorian community as in some way ignoring the advice of Professor Sutton,” speaking for several minutes before eventually saying that she believed parliamentary proceedings should be “as fast as possible”, and would therefore not be offering a verbal answer to Ms Crozier’s question.

“I will take the member’s question on notice. I will provide her with a written answer in accordance with the standing orders, and I give a commitment to do so in the usual time frame, which will be by tomorrow, even though the house will not be sitting tomorrow,” Ms Mikakos said.

She gave similar responses to a series of questions from Ms Crozier, Coalition Upper House leader David Davis, Sustainable Australia MP Clifford Hayes, Liberal Democrat David Limbrick and Transport Matters Party MP Rod Barton.

The subjects ranged from her knowledge of the hotel quarantine program to whether she would release Doherty Institute genomic sequencing linking Victoria’s cases to the quarantine breaches, and the basis for Victoria’s pursuit of a suppression rather than an elimination strategy, as well as the state’s ICU capacity and the justification for the current lockdown measures.

We shouldn’t be at parliament today. We should all be staying safe. The @VictorianCHO advice was to delay this sitting. It’s a dangerous trend for leaders to ignore medical advice. We should set the example. The longer we’re here, the greater the risk to all who work at #springst pic.twitter.com/eocRLzM7mW

— Jenny Mikakos MP #StayHomeSaveLives (@JennyMikakos) August 4, 2020

Despite also adopting Ms Mikakos’s approach of offering only written responses to questions, Mr Leane spent some minutes making a ministerial statement — the Victorian parliament equivalent of a Dorothy Dixer — regarding the anniversary of the end of World War Two in the Pacific, detailing his father’s service in New Guinea and Borneo.

Following Question Time, Mr Davis described Ms Mikakos and Mr Leane’s performance as an “arrogant” attempt to “cover up government failures”.

“Millions of Victorians have been forced to make unprecedented sacrifices with jobs lost, businesses closed and basic liberties taken away,” Mr Davis said.

“Parliament is about ordinary Victorians getting the answers from the Premier and his ministers about why Victoria is the only state in the country in a state of disaster.

“These two Labor ministers have deliberately snubbed parliament and behaved in a way that is unbecoming of a minister.

“This is a clear cover up of the multitude of failures in the Andrews Labor government’s handling of the bungled hotel quarantine, contact tracing and cuts to public health before the pandemic.

“The least they can do is give the small business owners who have closed their doors and the hundreds of thousands of Victorians now without a job the answers that they deserve.

“For a government that considers the opening of bottle shops essential, it remains a mystery why it would consider scrutiny of the harshest restrictions on Victorians’ rights and economic damage since the war would not be deemed essential.”

Ms Mikakos tweeted following question time, saying politicians should not be at parliament.

“We shouldn’t be at parliament today. We should all be staying safe. The @VictorianCHO advice was to delay this sitting,” she said.

“It’s a dangerous trend for leaders to ignore medical advice. We should set the example. The longer we’re here, the greater the risk to all who work at #springst.”

Ms Mikakos cited Professor Sutton’s advice to Speaker Colin Brooks, which stated that it would be “prudent for you to consider delaying the return of the Victorian parliament.”

“This delay will enable you to ensure you are implementing all possible measures so that the health and safety of those working in the parliament is safeguarded,” Professor Sutton wrote.