Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp accused of misleading inquiry

Victoria’s top emergency official has again been accused of misleading a parliamentary inquiry.

Emergency Management Victoria Commissioner Andrew Crisp. Picture: Luis Ascui

Victoria’s top emergency official has again been accused of misleading a parliamentary inquiry as two state agencies say they did not review the biggest government failures seen during the state’s second wave.

Emergency Management Victoria Commissioner Andrew Crisp told a parliamentary inquiry in December an internal review was conducted into the 2020 hotel quarantine ­catastrophe and the hard lockdown of nine public housing ­towers in Flemington and North ­Melbourne.

In response to a Freedom of Information request by The Australian, however, Victoria’s Health Department has denied the reports exist. “On the basis of your request, the COVID-19 Response division conducted a thorough and diligent search and advised that no relevant documents have been located,” said a lawyer for the department.

“The comments made by (Mr) Crisp at the PAEC inquiry on 16 December, 2020, in response to a question about the commissioning of ­assurance and learning reports in relation to hotel quarantine and public housing towers should not be taken to confirm the existence of a report commissioned by the department on these particular matters.”

When asked in December whether EMV had undertaken assurance and learning analysis of hotel quarantine and the hard tower lockdown during the COVID-19 emergency, Mr Crisp told the parliamentary accounts and estimates committee: “There has been a range of other work done in relation to other parts of this emergency, that is correct.”

At the time, Mr Crisp said the control agency, then the Department of Health and Human Services, commissioned an EMV review into the handling of an abattoir outbreak in the southwest Victorian city of Colac.

The report found DHHS failed to support testing and enforce self-isolation.

PAEC deputy chair Richard Riordan said it was the second time Mr Crisp had given evidence at the inquiry that had later proven incorrect, after the EMV chief amended testimony last year to remove three references to regularly briefing Police Minister Lisa Neville on hotel quarantine.

“If EMV is trying to tell the people of Victoria that despite all the catastrophes we went through last year … if they’re telling us they have not reviewed internally anything that went wrong in the disaster that saw 800 people die, Andrew Crisp needs to resign,” he said.

An EMV spokeswoman said the transcript of Mr Crisp’s testimony was correct. She said hotel quarantine had been reviewed by the Coate inquiry, while the Victorian Ombudsman had probed the hard lockdown of the public housing towers. “These reports provide valuable information and form the basis of managing future incidents,” she said.

A Health Department spokeswoman said “investigations and outcomes” had been delivered by the hotel quarantine inquiry and a Victorian Ombudsman review into the hard lockdown of nine public housing towers. She did not provide comment before deadline on Monday to questions sent on Friday morning.

The Coate inquiry found failings within hotel quarantine sparked Victoria’s second wave, while Ombudsman Deborah Glass found the hard tower lockdown breached the human rights of 3000 residents.