Victoria pays double for COVID-19 hotel quarantine

Victoria is paying twice for hotel quarantine, running up a mounting bill to NSW as its own suspended program costs more than $1m a day.

Opposition spokesman for community safety David Southwick. Picture: David Geraghty

Victoria is paying twice for hotel quarantine, running up a mounting bill to NSW as its own suspended program costs more than $1m a day.

As the state government prepares to announce on Thursday when it will resume accepting international flights, The Australian can reveal that the NSW government will charge Victoria for quarantining more than 2600 of its residents.

A NSW Treasury spokeswoman said the cost of quarantining returned residents not covered by the fees charged to return travellers would be billed to the Victorian government.

“On 18 July, 2020, NSW introduced fees for returning travellers,” she said. “Consistent with the agreement by the Board of Treasurers, states and territories will be invoiced for any outstanding costs for their residents less any traveller fees collected.”

NSW charges returning travellers $3000 for an individual, $4000 a couple and $500 a child but this does not cover the entire cost of the quarantine stay.

It is understood NSW works out the cost of quarantining interstate travellers in bulk quarterly, as opposed to pricing each individual case, and has not determined the cost of quarantining Victorians over the new period.

Victoria suspended its hotel quarantine program on February 13 after an infection control breach at the Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport triggered a five-day lockdown. It is unclear when the program will begin again.

Opposition spokesman for community safety David Southwick said Victorians had lost faith in the Andrews government’s ability to run hotel quarantine.

The new charges will be in ­addition to the $37.7m bill Victoria still owes NSW for quarantining travellers when its program was suspended last year after infection control breaches sparked a second wave, killing 800 people and putting Melbourne in a 111-day lockdown.

A Victorian government spokeswoman said interstate travellers who quarantined in Victoria were charged a contribution fee, which offset the overall cost of the program. “The mid-year fin­ancial update contains an estimated total cost of various contracts for hotel quarantine at a point in time of $377m — this is an estimate and not the amount spent to date,” she said.