For weeks, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews has promised to be held accountable for errors in hotel quarantine that led to Melbourne’s devastating second wave.
Today, we got some of that, as he copped a lengthy grilling from state MPs at the public accounts estimates committee, interrupted briefly, of course, by microphone troubles.
Andrews said Victoria was in the midst of a second wave, but pointed to modelling that suggested current stage four lockdowns were working — without the intervention, we could have been looking at close to 20,000 daily cases in the coming weeks.
But the appearance also left plenty of questions — including around the critical failures on hotel quarantine — unanswered.
On responsibility
Liberal MP Richard Riordan, the committee’s deputy chair, wasted most of his question time trying to get Andrews, or one of his ministers, to fall on their sword.
Andrews said Jobs Minister Martin Pakula, who was responsible for hotel quarantine, would not be resigning.
“I’m not interested in playing political games with questions like that,” Andrews said.
“We are all working as hard as we can to fight a wicked enemy. That’s the enemy I’m exclusively focused on.”
Hotel quarantine bungles
It took over an hour of the hearing for Nationals MP Danny O’Brien to ask the question everyone was waiting for: who made the decision to put private security guards in charge of the hotel quarantine program in Victoria?
Andrews said the government had simply extended existing quarantine programs, in place for people who had to isolate.
“In many respects, hotel quarantine system simply became an extension of previously agreed processes, so a service, if you like, that was already on the ground and running,” Andrews said.
Andrews also continued to duck questions, referring to the inquiry chaired by former judge Jennifer Coate, which will commence hearings next week.
“There are some questions that can be answered, and there are other questions that simply cannot … the judge’s process is not set up because we have all the answers. It is set up to get us all the answers,” Andrews said.
Later, Andrews said it couldn’t be said for sure that Victoria was the only state which had seen outbreaks linked to hotel quarantine.
Tower lockdowns: not perfect
Greens MP Sam Hibbins stuck the boot in over the government’s abrupt lockdown of public housing towers.
Referring to the premier’s promise that nobody would “go without,” Hibbins pointed to examples of residents who were forced to deal with a lack of food and crucial medical supplies like insulin.
Andrews said by locking down the towers, he was following the health advice of his chief health officer. The decision was delivered at a mid-afternoon press conference, and Andrews said he’d been told by the chief health officer that morning that there was no alternative.
“Was every element of that response perfect? Of course it wasn’t. Nor could it have been,” the premier conceded.
“The ultimate vulnerability was not whether somebody got fed within five hours … the ultimate vulnerability was this thing infecting everybody in these towers and hundreds of people dying.”
Elimination not the end game
“The endpoint is to get case numbers to a low case number so that we can manage those cases and inevitable outbreaks,” Andrews said, in response to Liberal Democrats MP David Limbrick.
Andrews also confirmed the state was “not pursuing a strategy where we eliminate this virus”.
Limbrick asked how the government could know they weren’t harming more lives through keeping the state in lockdown.
“Some countries have gone for a herd immunity approach. That hasn’t lasted very long … [and] all that produces is tragedy,” Andrews said.
“When you have mass transmission, and you have not hundreds of cases a day but many thousands, and you will finish up with a fatality right that is exponentially higher than the terrible tragedy that we’re dealing with.”
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More Dan Andrews bashing…you seem to be good at that Kishor.
However…it is becoming boring, especially as the point seems to be totally political.
There is a HEALTH disaster happening…in case you hadn’t noticed!!
I’m fed up with the continued hammering of Daniel Andrews. I expected it of the Murdoch msm and the PM and his lackeys but I trusted Independent media to be more supportive and do some research. You seem to ignore the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic. I won’t be renewing my subscription.
Agreed.
The listicle intern just cannot write prose, let alone a narrative with an opening, content and conclusion.
Worse than filler.
Ironic that Andrew’s is being slammed by the political right for a catastrophe arising from his adherence to the right wing ideological obsession with outsourcing govt functions to unaccountable cheap as chips private sector providers (rather than using ‘lazy’ and ‘inefficient’ public servants). Poor Labor, always pandering to the ideological right in the hopeless belief that one day it’ll all be squared with Rupert and his ilk and they’ll be waved through as legitimate political players. Pathetic.
well said
Your take is’nt qite right 🙂 . I hate to say this but Sixty Minutes thing told us what happened. We paid top dollar $70 hour! But the two approved and supposedly reputable private security companies who either didn’t have enough crew or were greedy subcontracted to companies that did the same thing again. Until we got to the stage where untrained people were being hired through Whatsapp and paid $18-$20 hr.
A lot of those untrained people were people who missed out on jobseeker/ Jobkeeper etc. Scotty doesn’t like visa holders, students etc.
Dan Andrews is picking up the slack on a lot of that.
And they never, ever learn that lesson – look at the sock puppet AA and those behind (no knives coz they’ve not the gutz nor ability to lead a starving man to a banquet) already spruiking bipartisan fossil fuel/climate policy!
Daniel Andrews has something completely lacking in most other Australian politicians, especially LNP politicians, and most journalist hacks as well. He has courage.
I’m not a particular fan of Andrews. His politics are too far to the right for me. However; I can recognise guts when I see it.
Frydenberg, Smith and the rest of them are hyenas, and the journalists attacking him nothing more than vultures waiting to feast on the corpse of someone doing their best to protect those around him.
I am deeply, deeply saddened that Crikey has joined the wake.
Correct!
I too am becoming frustrated with the relentless ‘leftie bashing’.
Almost as if the scribblers have KPIs to meet.
I feel exactly the same way. I’m a Greens voter as Labor have swung way too right for me but I’ve been enormously impressed by Andrews during COVID-19. I’ve found a few articles sadly wanting on Crikey since I subscribed in April. I recommended others to subscribe too — now I’m regretting it. Didn’t think they’d jump on the anti-Andrews wagon.
According to the website tenders.gov.au, MSS security has large contracts for providing security for Dept of Home Affairs, Australian Signals Directorate and the AFP. If it’S good enough for the Feds to use them, why is it not good enough for the States to use them?
Going back to first principles, do not those in quarantine have any responsibility? They were all overseas returnees, so able to be responsible for passport controls, airline ticketing and other adult functions. Why were they not held responsible for not adhering to quarantine rules? Why was it considered essential that they be babysat, or chaperoned like unruly teenagers? Unless someone has evidence of guards inviting people to break quarantine, it seems to me the responsibility lies with those under quarantine.
Those doing all the bitching about Andrews’ alleged failures are the same people who wanted to open up and accused Andrews of being over-cautious. Remember it was Andrews to suggested to Morrison that going to the footy during lockdown might not be a good look.
It’s a curious thing but those who advocate “Government is not the solution, government is the problem” are the same people complaining that the government has not provided the solution.
As for Frydenberg calling for transparency, we are still waiting for transparency re the sports rorts, and while he’s in that frame of mind, perhaps he could share with us what he knows about which of Downer’s staff leaked the Top Secret Wilkie ONA paper on Iraq to Andrew Bolt on 20-23 June 2003.
DF your mention of the ‘Wilkie’ Paper reminds me that Angus Taylor is keeping the author of the ‘Clover Moore’ letter close to his chest too – well occasionally any way
Agree 100%. The people in hotel quarantine were (mostly) adults. They, and only they, are responsible for behavior which enabled the spread of this virus.
I suspect we’ll find that the security services were acquired under the terms of the Victorian government security services panel contract. Details are available here: https://www.buyingfor.vic.gov.au/security-services. Everyone should have a look – it seems pretty clear to me that there was nothing untoward in the process that was followed.
One other point. Much has been made of the supposed lack of training of the security guards assigned to the hotel quarantine. All security guards practising in Victoria are legally obliged to be registered and qualified. This qualification process includes training in professional security practices, including in matters such as crowd control.
How much more specialised training is required to enable guards to tell quarantine residents that they have to stay in their room?
If it transpires that the private security firms were using unqualified, unregistered and illegal resources to provide the services, that is another matter altogether and it will really hit the fan. I will be very surprised if this is the case, though.
Like pink batts were used by the RWNJ to crucify Krudd & co? Yeah, right.
Pretty good post, DF. I think you’ve about covered it. It’s Pink Batts Mk2.
Well, there certainly are similarities. PB1 arose as a result of Abbot’s shameless opportunism, some revolting ad hominem attacks on Minister Peter Garrett by the Murdoch press and the inability of the Rudd government to grow a pair and rebut critics. It trashed the career of numerous public servants and gave rise to more enquiries than sticks can be poked at. All of which vindicated the program outcomes whilst, justifiably, critiquing aspects of execution.
So yes, the hotel quarantine has some similarities to PB, particularly the always unedifying role of Murdoch and [ insert polly or journo of choice]’s shameless opportunism. PB as lazy shorthand for government failure probably has less to do the reality and move to do with the great, catchy name – come on, pink batts!
Yes, this blame game reminds me of the so-called pink batts fiasco. The initiative was a good idea, and many benefited, but it was lambasted by the LNP and the media. As everyone knows, surely, some poorly trained installers died because cowboy operators were permitted to operate without the appropriate qualifications; here some of the states failed to provide that oversight. But, who gets the blame, the federal labor party of course.
Now we turn to two of the big failures in containing the virus; the release of passengers from the Ruby Princess and the laxity of the security firms in the hotel lockdown. Surely, both of these are the responsibility of the border force, given enormous power by the current LNP government. Indeed I understand that the security of incoming passengers from overseas is explicitly their responsibility. Now, who gets the blame, the state governments. Where is Peter Dutton in all this?
PS. Sorry, I hadn’t yet read Harry’s comments on the same issue
Well said, nullifidian. I would say that, wouldn’t I?
oops, soz Bob.
So outraged by the similarity that I posted before seeing yours.
Your relentless focus on what appears to be attacks on Daniel Andrews is not objective reporting is more like harrasment I did not see the same level of push for information about the Ruby Princess issue??,Could the debacle about the use of security guards as contractors reveal a much deeper issue than just ‘get Andrews’…now that would be investigative journalism…