The Andrews government abandoned a key element of its own pandemic planning by failing to put Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, in charge of the state’s emergency response.
Under Victoria’s plan for an influenza pandemic, developed in 2015 by public health and emergency management experts who worked through the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the Chief Health Officer would assume the role of State Controller and "overall responsibility for emergency response operations".
Premier Daniel Andrews leads Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton into the daily briefing.Credit:Jason South
Instead, over the past few months the critical role of State Controller passed between a middle-ranking health bureaucrat, a forest firefighter, a career police woman and a State Emergency Service executive, none of whom have a medical background or experience in containing infectious disease.
These appointments were made by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kym Peake. Two weeks ago, at the height of Melbourne’s second wave, Ms Peake stepped into the role herself as part of an organisational overhaul of the state’s COVID-19 response.
Premier Daniel Andrews said these decisions were no reflection on Professor Sutton’s capacity to do the job of State Controller.
"The title that is given to the Chief Health Officer is far less important than the work that he does and the central role that he and his team have in all of the decisions we make," Mr Andrews said.
Premier Daniel Andrews says Brett Sutton has been central to the state's pandemic response.Credit:Jason South
"What might have worked as a response, or what might have been thought appropriate as a response to events, say, in 2009, or a document in 2015, may not necessarily be relevant to the things that we are dealing with."
Victoria recorded 372 cases of coronavirus on Friday and 14 deaths, including a man in his 20s. The number of active cases fell by 24 to 7842, the third day active cases had dropped.
Professor Sutton said he was confident the state had passed the peak of its second wave as health authorities revealed they were unable to identify the source of one in five "mystery cases" in Melbourne.
Throughout the pandemic, Professor Sutton has been the face of Victoria’s public health response and informed key decisions taken by the Andrews government to contain the virus, including this month's introduction of stage four restrictions.
Yet, government and emergency management insiders say the decision not to put Professor Sutton into the role of State Controller created a leadership vacuum within an emergency response that, at times, has been hindered by opaque lines of reporting and interdepartmental dysfunction.
Professor Sutton says he first learned about problems in hotel quarantine – the source of Victoria’s deadly and economically destructive second wave of infections – when he read reports of them in newspapers.
The Victorian action plan for influenza pandemics was developed by the state’s inaugural Emergency Management Commissioner, Craig Lapsley, and Professor Sutton’s predecessor, former chief health officer Rosemary Lester, and approved in 2015 by Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Chris Eccles.
It provides a blueprint for how the state's emergency response nerve centre, the State Control Centre, should operate in a pandemic and sets out the two most senior roles: the EMC and State Controller.
"The Chief Health Officer assumes the role of State Controller with authority to activate the Victorian health management plan for pandemic influenza, including the response stage and each of the standby, action and stand-down sub-stages," the plan states. "The Chief Health Officer has overall responsibility for emergency response operations during an influenza pandemic.''
The State Controller’s responsibilities include establishing incident control structures, liaising with emergency services and support organisations, briefing and allocating tasks to emergency managers and preparing situation reports.
Under the plan, the State Controller reports to Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner, Andrew Crisp, who in a health emergency takes on the role of co-ordinator-in-chief.
Sources familiar with the influenza pandemic plan say an effective State Controller requires a mix of management, leadership and technical skills and knowledge. In a bushfire, the role would normally be taken by a chief fire officer; in an outbreak of equine flu, it would be filled by a vet.
Victoria’s first State Controller in the COVID-19 pandemic was Jason Helps, a DHHS manager who in late 2019 was a divisional acting director of emergency management and health protections.
Mr Helps was replaced by three experienced emergency service professionals; State Emergency Service chief officer Tim Weibusch, former Victoria Police assistant commissioner and current Deputy Emergency Management Commissioner Deborah Abbott and Forest Fire Management Victoria executive director Chris Hardman.
Mr Hardman, a well-regarded firefighter, tweeted his own surprise when he stepped into the role on July 25. "What is a Forest Fire Fighter doing in a public health emergency? nothing different from incredibly diverse workforce from so many agencies and community groups working together."
Ms Peake was appointed State Controller at the end of last month. At the same time, the government added Professor Sutton and Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton to the regular, state control meetings chaired by Commissioner Crisp.
Government sources said that, as the head of the lead agency in a health emergency, Ms Peake was the most senior public official who could be appointed to the role.
Professor Sutton, a public servant within DHHS, has reported to Ms Peake throughout the pandemic.
A DHHS spokesperson said the 2015 plan had been "superseded by other plans and developments with emergency management" and was being reviewed. "During a pandemic of this scale it is simply not possible to fulfil both the role of Chief Health Officer and State Controller (Health) at the same time," the spokesperson said.
A high rate of attrition in the State Controller job can be partly attributed to the intense demands of the role throughout Victoria’s protracted COVID crisis. "There has been some people that have played a very important role and worked extremely hard," Mr Andrews said. "Not everybody has got the capacity to continue doing that forever.
"I am confident that we have had arrangements in place. They have changed over time and that is a product of the fact that this is a second wave, not the first. This is an entirely different challenge to the one we faced earlier on in the year.
Mr Andrews at the start of the pandemic released his government’s response plan for the Victorian health sector but, as this plan makes clear, it is not intended to replace or supersede the 2015 plan which sets out the broader, emergency response.
A Victorian Action Plan for COVID-19 Pandemic is still being developed. As of Friday, it remained in draft form and was yet to be published.
With Rachael Dexter
Chip Le Grand is The Age’s chief reporter. He writes about crime, sport and national affairs, with a particular focus on Melbourne.
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2020-08-14 13:45:00Z
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