The final report from the inquiry into Victoria’s botched hotel quarantine program has been unable to determine who commissioned the use of private security and has slammed the Andrews Government for failing to do “proper analysis” of the plan.
The COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry report, which was tabled to Parliament on Monday morning, found no request was made to Victoria Police to provide the “first tier” enforcement of hotel quarantine.
However, the chief commissioner of police at the time, Graham Ashton, was consulted and “expressed a preference that private security perform that role and Victoria Police provide the ‘back up’.”
- The full report is available here
Former judge Jennifer Coate said not one of the 70,000 documents before her inquiry “demonstrated a contemporaneous rationale for the decision to use private security as the first tier of enforcement, or an approval of that rationale in the upper levels of government”.
The report also found that decisions were made away from the Premier and senior ministers.
“The decision as to the enforcement model for people detained in quarantine was a substantial part of an important public health initiative and it cost the Victorian community many millions of dollars,” the report says.
“But it remained, as multiple submissions to the Inquiry noted, an orphan, with no person or department claiming responsibility.”
The report found that Victoria’s second wave was triggered by transmission from hotel quarantine guests to staff and on into the community.
-more to come
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