Hotel quarantine inquiry: Inquiry shows why nothing has stuck to Daniel Andrews

Part of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ secret is the appearance of contrition and accountability while ultimately blaming someone else.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appears at the hotel quarantine inquiry.

Daniel Andrews is “sorry” that “unacceptable mistakes” have been made.

He agrees the issue of infection control was “too important” to be left entirely to private security contractors under his government’s hotel quarantine scheme.

He agrees that answers are required to the question of who exactly is responsible for the breaches which resulted in a second wave of coronavirus which has killed at least 762 people and seen Victorians locked in their homes for months, with crippling social and economic consequences for the state and nation.

But after weeks of cross-examination of ministers and top public servants in legal proceedings costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, no one has been able to provide those answers, least of all the man ostensibly in charge.

Mr Andrews’ calm, polite, seemingly helpful demeanour during more than two hours of cross-examination on Friday afternoon by Counsel Assisting the Board of Inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine Rachel Ellyard provided an insight into how he and his government have withstood scandal after scandal during almost six years in government.

From the “redshirts” rorts which saw Labor ordered by the Ombudsman to repay $388,000 of taxpayers’ money used to pay political campaigners, to expense scandals resulting in the resignation of a speaker and deputy speaker, Comcar chauffeured dogs and the more recent sacking of three ministers over branchstacking allegations, nothing has stuck to the Premier.

Part of his secret is the appearance of contrition and accountability while ultimately blaming someone else.

On Friday it appeared the “someone else” was Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, her department, and to a lesser degree his own departmental secretary Chris Eccles.

Mr Andrews agreed with Ms Ellyard that it was alarming that no one involved in the collective decision making process to use private security guards seemed aware of their involvement.

“It is very disappointing,” he said.

He agreed there should not have been confusion over who was in charge.

“It should be very clear,” he said.

But as for any suggestion that it should have been clear to him personally — that was an “operational matter”.

“The decision to engage private security contractors, and many decisions like it, were of an operational nature,” Mr Andrews said — noting that he would no more expect to be involved in determining staffing in the event of managing a bushfire catastrophe.

It was “concerning” that Ms Mikakos did not regard herself as accountable for the hotel quarantine program, and Mr Eccles should have passed on an offer of ADF assistance made by his Canberra counterpart Phil Gaetjens.

A head or two may roll over what has been described as the worst public policy failure in Victoria’s history, but it won’t be the Premier’s.

And given that after weeks of evidence, the only clear conclusion is that no one is prepared to accept personal responsibility, any possibility of a comprehensive overhaul of the byzantine bureaucracy that brought us this mess seems a distant prospect.