‘Dan was so furious’: Five key moments in Brett Sutton’s career

Victoria’s chief health officer, Professor Brett Sutton, announced his resignation on Friday. Appointed to the position in 2019, he led the state’s health response during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We revisit five key moments in his career, from axing the Grand Prix to becoming a TikTok phenomenon during Melbourne’s many lockdowns.

‘You get torn over this stuff’: Axing the Grand Prix

As Victoria’s chief health officer during the pandemic, Brett Sutton wielded power over the daily lives and movements of millions of Victorians.

He was one of the first government officials in the world to acknowledge what was coming, tweeting on February 23, 2020, that a pandemic was “very likely, if not inevitable”.

He cites the cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix as the first major decision he made, saying it provided a template to restrict mass gatherings as the pandemic worsened.

In a 2021 podcast interview with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, Professor Sutton opened up about the pressure of making major health decisions and leading Victoria’s COVID-19 response.

He said his Grand Prix call was the first of many unpopular decisions.

“You get torn about over this stuff, I continue to,” Sutton said.

“You have to be reasonably gentle with yourself, this will always happen at the pointy end of decision-making.”

Fans lined up for the first day of the Grand Prix in 2020, but the gates never opened. It was cancelled at the 11th hour due to COVID-19.Credit: Getty

Abundance of caution: The most locked-down city in the world

Based on Sutton’s advice, Melburnians were forced to stay home for six separate lockdowns – totalling 260 days – during 2020 and 2021, earning Melbourne the crown of the most locked-down city in the world in October 2021.

Victoria’s decision to have private security guards oversee hotel quarantine for returning travellers, rather than police or army personnel, would later prove one of the most contentious decisions of the pandemic response – and the catalyst for the second wave that ravaged Victoria starting June 2020, causing almost 800 deaths and plunging the state into a lockdown that lasted more than 100 days.

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton giving evidence at the hotel quarantine inquiry.Credit:

Sutton’s team was responsible for the decision to lock down nine public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington in July 2020.

About 3000 people were confined to their homes for between five and 14 days, and state ombudsman Deborah Glass later found the government’s decision to enact the lockdown without forewarning violated the residents’ human rights.

Sutton had little involvement in hotel quarantine at the outset. In the late 2020 hotel quarantine inquiry, he testified that he was unaware private security guards were overseeing the program until his team started to trace outbreaks to that source – but emails produced at the inquiry suggested the matter had been brought to his attention at the time.

As well as detailing shortcomings of the hotel quarantine program, the inquiry report pointed to the chief health officer’s seemingly contradictory desire for more responsibility and a reluctance to take it.

Melbourne’s many lockdowns were exhausting and contentious, eliciting full-throated support and protest. In July 2021, Professor James Trauer, head of epidemiological modelling at Monash University’s School of Public Health, estimated Victoria’s lockdowns had saved 30,000 lives. And a recent Melbourne University study found Melbourne’s lockdowns may not have been as devastating to residents’ mental health as first thought.

Class warfare: Closing schools and playgrounds

On March 10, 2020 Sutton first flagged the possibility of a mass school shutdown, when a teacher at Carey Baptist Grammar contracted COVID-19 from a family member who had recently returned from the US. The school closed for several days and Sutton warned that more schools would follow suit.

Less than two weeks later, his warning came to fruition: with case numbers rising, Premier Daniel Andrews announced the drastic measure to shut down the school system by bringing the holidays forward, based on Sutton’s advice.

Tape blocks off access to swings in Hampton East in August 2021.Credit:

The decision of when and how to re-open schools would also be Sutton’s call, Andrews said at the time, signalling the central role the chief health officer – previously unknown to many – would play in determining the lives of Victorians throughout the pandemic.

Then-PM Scott Morrison pushed back against school closures, prompting criticism from Victorian principals.

In October 2022, an independent review of Australia’s pandemic response found the mass closure of schools “was avoidable and should not be repeated unless strong health advice outweighs the cost of closures,” The Age’s Chip Le Grand reported.

Another divisive decision from Sutton was shutting down outdoor playgrounds and skate parks in March 2020. Over the course of 2020 and 2021, playgrounds seesawed between being open and closed to the dismay of parents, many of whom said they were confused by the restrictions and frustrated by the lack of options to alleviate boredom. Medical experts were divided over whether it was an effective public health measure.

Andrews and Sutton on the first day out of lockdown in October 2021.Credit: Paul Jeffers

‘Dan was so furious’: His sometimes contentious relationship with the premier

Sutton and Premier Daniel Andrews presented a united front, but behind the scenes, Andrews expressed frustrations with the chief health officer – and word got out.

In the early months of the pandemic, Andrews was said to be livid with Sutton after he sent an email detailing how the virus had breached hotel quarantine to infect multiple people.

“Dan was so furious with him he did not even glance at him,” a government figure who observed the subsequent press conference said.

An inquiry was ordered into the hotel quarantine breach immediately after Sutton’s email, with Andrews forced to move fast to contain the damage.

While tensions simmered between the two throughout the pandemic, it reportedly never boiled over into fundamental matters.

Sources say daily stress and the premier’s perception that Sutton had not always been prepared on health messaging details and was sometimes inconsistent was a sore point.

Andrews took to Twitter on Friday to thank Sutton for his service.

“For more than a decade, Professor Sutton has served our state and guided us through some of the most difficult times,” he wrote.

“As CHO, Brett helped keep us informed, and above all, safe.

“Thank you for your service, and all the very best for your next role.”

The ‘Suttonettes’: Brett Sutton’s cult of personality

As the pandemic dragged on, interest in Sutton’s background and personality – from his meditation practice to the tragic premature death of his father, which prompted his interest in medicine – surged. Sutton’s reassuring presence during hours-long COVID press conferences earned him celebrity status, inspiring memes and a strong TikTok following among a group of fans that dubbed themselves ‘Suttonettes’.

Some online designers went as far as creating pillows, bedsheets and other homewares featuring his face. And when Sutton rolled up his sleeve for his AstraZeneca jab in April 2021, many commentators were thrilled by his tattoos.

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