Explosive report in The Age this morning exposes that the Vic Labor government was warned after one day of problems with hotel quarantine security.
The highly centralised decision making machine erected by Labor premier Daniel Andrews is a failure.
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Leaked emails reveal government knew of problems on day one of hotel quarantine
By Paul Sakkal
July 13, 2020 — 11.30pm
Top bureaucrats warned senior health officials at the beginning of the Andrews government's botched hotel quarantine scheme that security guards were ill-equipped for the work and demanded police be called in to take control.
The Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald have seen leaked emails between senior officials in leading agencies involved in the quarantine system, which was supposed to protect the community from imported COVID-19 cases.
Rydges on Swanston was one of the hotels where protocol breaches by guards were identified.Credit:Getty Images
The first email raising concerns was sent by a senior bureaucrat at the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions within 24 hours of the March 28 launch of the program
.
It was addressed to several senior officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which was the leading agency for the day-to-day management of hotel quarantine, according to an Emergency Management Victoria operational document seen by
The Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald.
"We request that Victoria Police is present 24/7 at each hotel starting from this evening. We ask that DHHS urgently make that request as the control agency," the email read.
DHHS was asked to address issues on the supply and distribution of masks and gloves, and to clarify policies on whether detainees could leave their rooms or order UberEats takeaway food.
The email was also sent to Emergency Management Victoria, which was jointly responsible for the hotel scheme alongside DHHS.
The Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald have chosen not to reveal the identities of those named in the email exchanges, or to quote from the emails in full, because those involved had not consented to providing the emails to the media.
Premier Daniel Andrews announced an inquiry into Victoria's quarantine scheme, to be led by former judge Jennifer Coate, after protocol breaches by guards at the Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza hotels were identified as the source of coronavirus outbreaks in Melbourne's north and west.
The outbreaks marked the start of a second surge across the state. Victoria recorded 177 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday after more than a week of triple-digit daily increases. In May and June, there were dozens of days when fewer than 10 new cases were reported statewide.
The state’s Chief Health Officer said on Monday it was "conceivable" that all the active COVID-19 cases in Victoria stemmed from Melbourne’s problem quarantine hotel program.
After an incident in which a traveller left his room to smoke at 3am, the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions official sent a second email on March 30 demanding that DHHS request police support, suggesting private security companies were "not adequate" to guard the hotels.
The email recommended DHHS ban quarantined travellers from leaving their rooms for any reason, including exercise.
A top official from Emergency Management Victoria responded to the request by saying police were not required because guards could call triple zero if a situation warranted police involvement.
DHHS declined to answer questions about whether it requested the support of Victoria Police and whether its departmental officials escalated the concerns to Health Minister Jenny Mikakos. Victoria Police was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline.
A spokeswoman for the Premier's office, also responding on behalf of departments, declined to answer questions about the early warnings, instead saying an inquiry had been established "at arm’s length from government", the same response it has given to questions on the failings of the hotel quarantine program since the inquiry’s establishment.
"All departments and agencies will fully co-operate with the inquiry," the spokeswoman said. "We will let the inquiry do its work – our focus remains on containing this virus."
On July 2, the day the government announced a judicial inquiry, Police Minister Lisa Neville said police were not the default agency for the management of the pandemic response in Victoria, as they were in other states.
Masked workers inside the Stamford hotel.Credit:Getty Images
"Every state runs their emergency management system in a very different way. In NSW it’s run by the police ... that is not the case in Victoria. In health emergencies, it’s health."
On the same day, the Premier labelled the quarantine breaches "unacceptable". "It’s why there have been changes into the way hotel quarantine operates," Mr Andrews said.
The Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this month that at least five agencies were involved in the decision to deploy private security guards, instead of soldiers or police, at quarantine hotels: Health; Jobs; Premier and Cabinet; Emergency Management Victoria; and Victoria Police.
Emails sent on March 29 and an internal Emergency Management Victoria operational document dated March 28 detail the roles and responsibilities of each agency in the hotel quarantine system, with DHHS and Emergency Management Victoria leading the program.
DHHS and Jobs Department worked together – along with the Department of Transport, the Australian Federal Police and Border Force – on the logistics and planning of the hotel scheme, including transporting travellers from the airport.
DHHS and Emergency Management Victoria – led by Ms Mikakos and Ms Neville respectively – had "control and command" powers for operations at the hotels, including managing, monitoring and responding to returned travellers, the documents show.
The Jobs Department, led by minister Martin Pakula, was responsible for procuring contracts with hotels and security firms, and purchasing services, items and food for returned travellers.
The department's early planning role would "transition to the Deputy State Controller and DHHS as the control agency," a March 29 email from DHHS to Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions shows.
The Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald revealed on July 3 that the Chief Health Officer was told of similar problems with the hotel quarantine system in mid-April.
Wilson, MSS and Unified were the three major security companies contracted to provide security at the hotels.
A spokeswoman for Wilson Security, which provided guards at some hotels and says none of its workers were infected, said it collaborated with police for hotel site walk-throughs, and it defended its capacity to equip guards to work at quarantine hotels.
The company regularly "reinforced use-of-force provisions and legal authority for quarantine restrictions", the spokeswoman said.
Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton.Credit:Eddie Jim
"We deployed specialist services and expert personnel from our corporate risk department to oversee the deployment of all staff into hotels.
"We also had expert health, safety, and environmental resources provide risk-based assessments of duties and work environments in order to enhance operational processes to mitigate risks."
A spokesman for Unified Security said guards had adequate personal protective equipment and were "equipped to do the job safely and effectively" after being trained thoroughly.
Speaking on ABC Radio Melbourne’s
Drive program on Monday evening, Chief Health Officer Professor Sutton said that while the viruses currently circulating Victoria had not all been sampled, it was possible they were all linked.
"We don't know the exact proportion [that are linked to hotel quarantine]. We know that it's genomically linked to the quarantine cases, but not all of the viruses that are out there at the moment are sampled, not all of them can be grown in order to get the genomic sequencing – but I think we've said previously a very significant proportion was shown up in a in an early snapshot of that," he said.
Drive host Rafael Epstein asked: "So it’s still [the case that] most, if not all, comes from the one problem in one hotel?"
"Yeah, that's conceivable absolutely," replied Professor Sutton.
The Chief Health Officer said he used "pretty colourful language" when the genomic link was first made between hotel quarantine and outbreaks around the city.
"No one wants to have that be the case. I felt that everyone who was managing that quarantine program, because they were actually doing a fantastic job managing all of the logistic complexities of it. But it speaks to, you know, the dangers of any positive case out there and the ability for it to spread very extensively as has occurred."
