Push for Daniel Andrews’ chief of staff, Lissie Ratcliff, to face hotel quarantine inquiry

Victoria’s opposition has urged the hotel quarantine inquiry to call Daniel Andrews’ chief of staff to give evidence over the decision to use private security guards.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Victoria’s opposition has urged the hotel quarantine inquiry to call Daniel Andrews’ chief of staff to give evidence over whether she told the police commissioner that a decision had been made to use private security guards to monitor hotel guests.

Following a national cabinet meeting on March 27 at which the decision was made to force all return travellers to Australia to spend a fortnight in hotel quarantine, then police commissioner Graham Ashton sent a text message to his Australian Federal Police counterpart, Reece Kershaw, at 1.12pm, asking why AFP would not have the role of guarding people at the hotels.

Four minutes later, Mr Ashton texted Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Chris Eccles: “The suggestion is that Victorian arrivals are conveyed to a hotel somewhere where they are guarded by police for 14 days. Are you aware of anything in this regard??”

But at 1.22pm Victoria’s Mr Ashton texted Mr Kershaw again, saying: “Mate my advice is that ADF will do passenger transfer and private security will be used.”

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Ed O’Donohue said on Monday the issue of who advised Mr Ashton that private security would be used was “central” to the investigations of the inquiry. The opposition wrote to the inquiry to ask that the Premier’s

chief of staff, Lissie Ratcliff, be called to give evidence.

“Was it the Premier’s chief of staff? Was it the Police Minister’s chief of staff? Was it a deputy secretary within DPC (Department of Premier and Cabinet)?” Mr O’Donohue said.

“Anyone who has information relevant to that central question must come forward, and we submit to the board of inquiry, they should pursue this issue vigorously.

“The board still has a month until it is due to report. It’s been provided supplementary funding. It has the time and resources to get to the bottom of this question.

“The question of who signed off, and who authorised private security remains the most significant outstanding question before the board of inquiry, and we say must be answered before the inquiry completes.”

Mr O’Donohue said the inquiry should also seek phone and other communication records that could answer the question of who advised Mr Ashton of the decision to use private security.

In his testimony to the inquiry, Mr Ashton said he could not remember where he “got that advice from”.

“It is clear that Graham Ashton received phone calls, and had communication that led him to understand that private security would be used when it comes to hotel quarantine,” Mr O’Donohue said.

Lissie Ratcliff. Picture: Facebook

“The board should make an application to access those incoming phone records. The Act contemplates how that can occur, and the board should do that.

“If the board doesn’t have sufficient powers to do so, or it’s made an application, and that application has been rejected, then it’s in the public interest for that to be known, and released publicly.

“This is critical because the Premier, Daniel Andrews, has said that the board’s recommendations will be the foundation for future policy when it comes to hotel quarantine and managing these issues.

“The board can’t make complete recommendations until it has all the facts, and community safety is dependent on having all the facts and a suite of recommendations that can deliver public policy changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Asked whether he was suggesting Ms Ratcliff had given the advice to Mr Ashton, Mr O’Donohue said: “I don‘t know who made that decision, but I do know you would only be a small cohort of people who would pick up the phone to the chief commissioner of Victoria Police and give an instruction or give a direction about a decision of government that had been made, and that to me is an identifiable group, and that group should be tested about their interaction with the chief commissioner on that day.”

Mr Andrews earlier said Ms Ratcliff’s appearance at the inquiry was not a matter for him.

“Who they call is entirely a matter for them — entirely — and they’ve made those decisions completely separate from government, and if there were any implication or inference to the contrary, I’m just saying that that would be simply wrong,” he said.

He disputed that Ms Ratcliff had a key decision-making role.

“She supports me and other ministers in the government through the team that she leads. She’s not a decision-maker,” he said.

“Those decisions are made by people who are not working in a private office, really significant decisions, I mean, not day-to-day stuff. They’re made by people who are sworn and are accountable for that.”

Mr Andrews said he did not accept that if he really wanted to get to the bottom of who was responsible for putting private security guards in hotel quarantine, he would have established a royal commission, which has greater powers to call witnesses and subpoena evidence than a board of inquiry.

“At no point have the people who are running the inquiry made that request to me or observed that or made those sort of comments, and I would have thought that they, as an arm’s-length process, if they felt there was a deficiency, then I assume they would have made those points.

“They haven’t, so I don’t that’s a conclusion that you can fairly draw,” Mr Andrews said.

“And again, I’ve made this point many times, because it’s the accurate one and the factual one: we haven’t seen the report yet.

“I don’t know what the inquiry, what the board, will find, what they’ll recommend, what conclusions they’ll draw. It’s open to them to do lots of different things. That is entirely the nature of these things.”

Asked whether he would support Ms Ratcliff giving evidence to the inquiry, Mr Andrews said: “Anyone can be called by the inquiry and that’s entirely a matter for them, entirely a matter for them, and I think we run the risk of getting quite close to a series of hypotheticals and a commentary on an independent process that I don‘t believe is appropriate.”

“They have the opportunity to call anyone that they choose. They’ve done that. Beyond that it’s entirely a matter for them and those sorts of questions I think would be best directed to them,” he said.