Covid-19: Police in three states probe movers’ journey

Daniel Andrews says a health authorities file on the three Sydney-based removalists has been handed to police in Victoria, South Australia and NSW.

Victorian Covid-19 logistics chief Jeroen Weimar. Picture: Sarah Matray

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says a health authorities file on the three Sydney-based removalists has been handed to police in Victoria, South Australia and NSW, although it remains ­unclear if they’ve broken any laws.

The three men travelled with a valid permit to Victoria and South Australia before one was notified he was a close contact of a positive case by NSW health authorities.

Mr Andrews said the men had not been forthcoming with Victorian health authorities, which, while slowing down contact tracers, may not be an offence.

“The frustration in many respects is not perhaps that they didn’t wear a mask when they ­unloaded the truck,” he said.

“It’s that for quite a while they were very difficult and not necessarily being very forthcoming – now whether that’s an offence is another matter.”

The three removalists left Sydney to arrive at the NSW town of Gundagai off the Hume Highway in the dead of night on July 8, ­entering a Coles express at 1am.

Their journey through three states has triggered the lockdown of more than six million people in Victoria, put South Australia on red alert and exposed a string of regional towns in NSW to the virulent Delta variant.

The story of the three men took days to drip through interviews hamstrung by language barriers as contact tracers trawled through CCTV footage and QR code data.

Details such as the fact there were three drivers and two trucks instead of one emerged days after authorities alerted the public.

What is known is that after leaving Gundagai at about 1.30am, the men at 9am stopped to refuel at a Caltex and eat at the adjacent Hungry Jack’s in the Victorian town of Kalkallo, about 40km north of Melbourne.

By 9.30am, the three men were delivering furniture at a family home in the suburb of Craigieburn where they unwittingly infected a man with Covid-19, who would breach quarantine

At 1pm, without masks, they then delivered furniture to a man in his 60s at the Ariele apartment complex in the suburb of Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s west, interacting with other residents in the building and travelling through common areas.

After delivering furniture in Maribyrnong, the three men ­refuelled and showered at a Mobil station and ate at a McDonald’s near the Victorian town of Ballan, around 80km northwest of Melbourne, between 5pm and 7pm on July 8.

The removalists then travelled more than 660km southwest to their next known location in the wine region of McLaren Vale in South Australia. They delivered furniture to a family of five relocating from western Sydney, and they spent about five hours at the home on July 9.

During the day, one of the men received a phone call from NSW contact tracers alerting him to the fact he was a close contact of a positive case.

After the McLaren Vale delivery, they arrived at the OTR Motorsport Park in the South Australian town of Tailem Bend, about 100km southeast from Adelaide, were they stayed between 7.20am and 8.15am. This site was identified through GPS data by SA authorities.

The removalist identified as a close contact isolated in his truck but his colleagues did not, and one has since tested positive.

The next known location is between 5.20pm and 7pm when the men visited Shell and the Coolabah Tree cafe. The nearly nine-hour gap between the exposure sites has not been explained.

The next day, they arrived at Shell Service station in the NSW town of Hay at 7.30am on July 10. The petrol station said on Facebook staff who encountered the men had since tested negative.

Along the Mallee Highway, the more than 560km journey be takes just under six hours.

At 11.15am, the men refuelled at a Shell in the town of Jindera at 11.15am, about 550km southwest of Sydney. At 5.30pm, they stopped at Hungry Jack’s and a BP in Marulan, about 170km southwest from Sydney.

The man who received a phone call from NSW Health tested positive that day for the Delta strain.