Ruby Princess coronavirus inquiry: Finally, blame lands in right place

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in Sydney on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Gladys Berejiklian has a playbook for dealing with a crisis. Whether mishap or fumble, negligence or failure, the solution is often an inconvenienced stare, a shake of the head, and the foisting of blame upon the nearest available bureaucracy. Backbenchers will tell you: there is no ministerial accountability in the Berejiklian government.

It is a tactic that has worked faultlessly for a string of her government’s most unpalatable moments. The minister found naked and disoriented late at night by police? Just an unfortunate reaction to a medical product.

The minister charged with breaking COVID-19 protocols? A brief exile from cabinet, but back now thanks to a legal technicality, the blame levelled on the NSW Police Force.

And so it goes with the Ruby Princess fiasco, a tragedy that Ms Berejiklian repeatedly tried to bury at the bottom of the harbour. Consistently the public was told that NSW Health officials did nothing wrong, then that Australian Border Force officials had erred in their decision-making. These are both demonstrably false, per the findings of the special commission of inquiry.

At her press conference on Monday the Premier issued an apology of sorts. She was sorry, yes, but there was no great mea culpa. One colleague called it “heartless”, another “underwhelming”.

It was Ms Berejiklian who long-resisted calls for a thorough inquiry, opting instead to let NSW Health conduct its own flimsy review until, under pressure on live radio, she conceded that NSW Police would conduct its own analysis. In the face of further public anger and a determined Labor opposition, she finally announced the special commission of inquiry in April.

Bret Walker SC’s report micro-planes every conceivable document, decision, thought bubble and WhatsApp message across 320 pages of sober, dispassionate analysis. Its conclusions: NSW Health made grave and inexplicable errors; the NSW government breached its own public health orders.

For months now Health Minister Brad Hazzard has bridled at any suggestion that either he or his department did anything incorrectly, the mere suggestion always dismissed with a curled lip and a flaring of the nostrils.

And while the inquiry’s report absolves him of any role in the decision, some senior Coalition MPs have suggested that someone must bear responsibility for this sorry episode.

Never one to gush, Mr Hazzard kept his apology statement brief on Monday. “I am sorry that lives have been impacted by decisions in this once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic.”