Former health minister Jenny Mikakos says Premier Daniel Andrews' evidence about private security in Victoria's hotel quarantine program should be "treated with caution" in a stinging rebuke to the state's inquiry.
Ms Mikakos has told the hotel quarantine inquiry, in a just-published, extraordinary final submission, that it is "implausible" to suggest no one made the decision to use private security in the failed program that unleashed Victoria's catastrophic second coronavirus wave.
Jenny Mikakos resigned as Victorian health minister last month.Credit:Scott McNaughton
Lawyers for the inquiry submitted last week that the decision to use private security to guard returned travellers in Melbourne's quarantine hotels "[was] not really a decision at all" but a "creeping assumption" among top bureaucrats that was not questioned by anyone.
"With respect, such a submission has insufficient regard to the realities of governmental operation and decision-making," Ms Mikakos' submission reads.
"It is respectfully submitted that the Board ought to treat with caution the Premier's evidence where he sought to explain the reference to the use of private security in the hotel quarantine program."
It would be nonsense ... for the DHHS, and through it, Ms Mikakos, to be considered to be solely responsible and solely accountable for the hotel quarantine program.
Jenny Mikakos' final submission
Mr Andrews told the inquiry he could not recall why he made mention of private security in a press conference on March 27 when he announced that international arrivals would be subjected to mandatory quarantine.
Ms Mikakos said the Premier would not have announced the use of private security if a decision had not already been made.
"In this regard, it is observed that no evidence was led about what briefings were provided to the Premier by his office in advance of that media conference," her submission reads.
Ms Mikakos said the weight of evidence points to an actual decision being made during the course of, or soon after, the meeting of National Cabinet about midday on March 27.
"This decision had substantial cost and resource implications for the state and it is inherently
unlikely, if not implausible, that such a decision would be the result of a 'creeping assumption'
rather than a considered choice at an elevated level of government," Ms Mikakos said.
The former minister said that was the only "cogent explanation" for the contemporaneous text message text sent soon after the National Cabinet meeting by former Chief Police Commissioner Graham Ashton to his federal counterpart that "our DPC (Department of Premier and Cabinet)" had set up a deal for private security.
Ms Mikakos said the decision not to use Defence Force personnel was inextricably linked to the decision to use private security, adding that Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp's view that troops weren't needed was "presumably because a decision had been taken to use private security guards".
The former health minister resigned last month just a day after Mr Andrews said he held her "accountable" for the botched hotel quarantine program that unleashed the state's disastrous second coronavirus wave.
Pressure had been mounting on Ms Mikakos over her handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the quarantine program, which led to the second wave that has claimed the lives of more than 750 people, cost the economy $12 billion and forced Melburnians into the strictest lockdown in the country.
Ms Mikakos and Health Department Secretary Kym Peake consistently maintained the hotel quarantine program was a "multi-agency operation with shared accountability".
But in an extraordinary testimony to the state's inquiry into the ill-fated program, Mr Andrews squarely held his then-health minister accountable.
Ms Mikakos said it is 'nonsense' for her alone to be held accountable for hotel quarantine bungle.
Jobs Minister Martin Pakula did not escape criticism, with Ms Mikakos maintaining that he shared the responsibility for the program.
Jobs Minister Martin Pakula.Credit:Jamie Brown
Her submission urges the inquiry to find that both the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions were "jointly responsible for the hotel quarantine program, and that those departments, and in turn Ms Mikakos and Minister Pakula, were accountable for their relevant areas of responsibility".
"It would be a [sic] nonsense, it is submitted, for the DHHS, and through it, Ms Mikakos, to be
considered to be solely responsible and solely accountable for the hotel quarantine program," the submission says.
Rydges on Swanston hotel, the source of 90 per cent of Victoria's second-wave COVID-19 cases.Credit:Penny Stephens
Ms Mikakos said the failure to set up the quarantine program through the state Cabinet "is the root cause of some of the issues" including differing views about who had overall responsibility and accountability and the "cause of the obscurity as to the identity of the decision-maker for important elements".
The inquiry, led by former judge Jennifer Coate, is due to deliver its final report on November 6.
Tammy Mills is the legal affairs reporter for The Age.
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2020-10-08 21:37:00Z
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