Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Daniel Andrews' face in the shadows
Victoria premier Daniel Andrews has told the hotel quarantine inquiry it is ‘very disappointing’ the decision to hire private security guards was supposedly made by a ‘collective’ of officials. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images
Victoria premier Daniel Andrews has told the hotel quarantine inquiry it is ‘very disappointing’ the decision to hire private security guards was supposedly made by a ‘collective’ of officials. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Daniel Andrews tells inquiry Jenny Mikakos responsible for Victoria hotel quarantine program

This article is more than 3 years old

In his long-awaited appearance at the hotel quarantine inquiry, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said he regarded his health minister, Jenny Mikakos, as “accountable for the program”.

The premier’s written statement provided to the inquiry on Friday said Mikakos and jobs minister Martin Pakula were responsible for informing cabinet about the program, and the pair provided a submission on the model for the program to the crisis council of cabinet on 8 April.

“The CCC [crisis council of cabinet] was provided with regular reports by Minister Mikakos containing data relevant to Victoria’s response to the public health emergency, key insights from the data, as well as other updates, including in relation to the program,” the submission read.

The premier stopped short of saying who was behind the decision to use private security guards, but the claim potentially puts Andrews at odds with health minister Jenny Mikakos.

The health minister’s statements to the inquiry on Thursday said she was not aware security guards were used in the program until the outbreak at the Rydges Hotel in late May.

Mikakos released a statement to the inquiry after Andrews’ submission was released denying she had misled the inquiry.

The premier told the inquiry it was “very disappointing” that the decision on private security guards was supposedly made by a “collective” of officials, with no one taking responsibility.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Rachel Ellyard, put it to the premier that the decision appeared to be made by a “creeping assumption” that private security would be used instead of police or the Australian Defence Force. Andrews said that would be even more concerning to him.

“That is not a decision at all, that is just a series of assumptions,” he said.

“We are left with a situation where no one owns the decision for the purposes of following up, if it was the right one, and if it wasn’t the right one, making necessary changes.”

Throughout the past few weeks, the inquiry has heard of poor communication between agencies responsible for the program, poor cleaning and infection control at the hotels, and the reliance on insecure workers.

The latter is particularly crucial as security guards, hired on a casual basis, worked at the hotels and at other casual jobs while symptomatic.

Witness after witness involved in the development of the program – from emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp, to then-Victoria police commissioner Graham Ashton, to the members of the state control centre, and staff at the department responsible for signing the contracts – denied being responsible for making the decision to use private security guards.

Andrews’ ministers, Jenny Mikakos, Martin Pakula or Lisa Neville, also pleaded ignorance over the decision.

Chief health officer Brett Sutton, who was sidelined from having a state controller position to better oversee the Covid-19 response, also claimed to have no knowledge over the use of private security guards until the outbreak in late May.

The Victorian government has spent $130m on the program, including $60m on private security. That does not include the cost of the inquiry, or the cost for legal representatives for the departments and ministers.

On the matter of the offer of ADF support, Andrews told the inquiry he was unaware of the offers in late March and early April, despite evidence shown that senior public servants were aware.

He said the offer was not what he understood at national cabinet.

“I had absolutely no expectation whatsoever that in the establishment and the running of hotel quarantine there would be significant extensive ADF support,” he said.

“I had no expectation at all that we would receive that type of support.”

Andrews said he had not seen an email containing the offer from the head of the department of prime minister and cabinet, Phil Gaetjens, to department of premier and cabinet secretary Chris Eccles until it was released to the inquiry.

Highlighting the disconnect in internal communications, the premier said he only became aware his government had requested ADF support in late June “after there had been media reports”.

Once he became aware, the day after the request, he cancelled the request because the hotel quarantine program was being “reset”.

“It seemed that there had been a disconnect between a process that was being run by the executive with input from departments and requests commissioner Crisp had put in.”

Nearly all of the 18,000 cases and 750 deaths in Victoria since the end of May can be traced back to Covid-19 outbreaks transmitted from returned travellers to staff at two quarantine hotels – the Stamford Plaza and the Rydges on Swanston. Those outbreaks could have been foreseen if the program had been set up with a greater focus on health, the inquiry heard last week.

Andrews told the inquiry he would wait for the findings before deciding on the final model for hotel quarantine, and at the end of his evidence he offered an unreserved apology for the failures of the program:

“I want to make it very clear to each and every member of the Victorian community that I am sorry for what has occurred here. And I want to issue an unreserved apology to all Victorians and I want to say [to] you, Madam Chair, I await the final report, the conclusion of your work, so we can understand better what has occurred, and so that I, as leader of the government, can take the appropriate action to ensure that these sorts of errors never occur again.”

The outcome of the inquiry could have major ramifications for both the government and the security firms. A class action was filed this week against two of the security companies involved with the hotels associated with the outbreak, Unified and MSS.

Closing submissions for the inquiry will be heard on Monday, and the chair of the inquiry, Jennifer Coate, will report to government on Friday, 6 November.

Most viewed

Most viewed