Thread by @benitakolovos, It's almost showtime on the final day of the $3m hotel quarantine [...]

It's almost showtime on the final day of the $3m hotel quarantine inquiry. The man who called the inquiry - Premier Daniel Andrews - is the final witness at 2:15pm. I'll be covering for @AAPNewswire. For those playing along at home, you can tune in here: https://webstreaming.lawinorder.com.au/HQI

As we all now know, 99 per cent of the state's second wave COVID-19 cases can be traced back to outbreaks among hotel staff and security guards at the Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza hotels in mid-May and June.

Since those outbreaks, more than 750 Victorians have died from the virus and millions have been forced into the nation's toughest lockdown.

So far, no one has been able to tell the inquiry who made the decision to use security guards in the first place. All we know is the decision was made on March 27, the day national cabinet announced the hotel quarantine program.

A reminder: there is about a 2 min delay on the live stream.

Counsel assisting the inquiry today is Rachel Ellyard. The premier is being represented by Stephen O'Meara QC.

The premier has taken the oath to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth".

Initially, the premier considered both Ministers Martin Pakula and Jenny Mikakos as responsible for the hotel quarantine program. From the premier's statement to the inquiry:

Here it is. The premier doesn't know who made the decision to engage private security companies for the hotel quarantine program:

"I expected there that there would be a mix of different personnel playing different roles in the program, including members of Victoria Police," the premier wrote in his statement.

"But the way in which that decision was to be implemented, including the mix of personnel that would be engaged and their respective roles, was an operational matter," his statement continues.

"That is similarly so in the management of other disasters. For example, I have no role in determining the mix of staff and allocation of tasks during a catastrophic bushfire event."

The premier had no view on the "appropriateness of using private security as the front line of security":

"My view as to the engagement of private security contractors in any future iteration of a mandatory hotel quarantine program will be guided by this Board of Inquiry’s findings and recommendations," the premier says in his statement. Makes no view of his own.

We briefly lost counsel assisting Rachel Ellyard but she's now back.

Mr Andrews describes the program as an "appropriate response to a very significant risk". "At a time when we were trying to buy time to prepare a health system. At a time when we were expecting that things would unfold much like it had in some other parts of the world," he says.

The premier agrees that the government assumed responsibility for keeping those in quarantine safe, as well as those in the community.

The premier admits the government "outsourced" responsibilities relating to infection control, including training for staff on correct PPE use, to hotels and security companies.

Q: "Would you agree with me that these issues of infection control were too important to be left entirely to private contractors?
Andrews: "Given what is at stake, given the seriousness and the infectivity of this virus, Ms Ellyard, I think that's a fair statement, yes."

Q: "Do you recall whether or not you had an opinion at the time about the appropriateness or otherwise of that frontline enforcement role being given to private security?"
Andrews: "I have no recall of having a specific view one way or the other."

Ms Ellyard has told the premier the guards - most of whom were subcontracted - carried luggage for arriving/leaving guests and took guests for fresh air walks without knowing if they had coronavirus.

Now we're onto the topic of ADF support.

"I stress this is not as a point of criticism but leaving the National Cabinet meeting, I had absolutely no expectation whatsoever that in the establishment and the running of hotel quarantine there would be significant extensive ADF support," the premier says.

"That was not the case for every state. A case I think had been well made in relation to New South Wales. But I had no expectation at all that we would receive that type of support and these matters, some week or so later, were not drawn to my attention," he says.

The premier says he wasn't shown an email dated Apil 8, from the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, offering ADF support.

Q: "Would you have ordinarily have expected that the availability of a resource of this kind from the ADF would have been drawn to your attention?
Andrews: "Yes."

"I think it would have been very significant to me and I cannot predict what outcome it may have had but I certainly would have wanted to know, because it would have presented us with options that we otherwise didn't have," the premier says.

"Multiple witnesses have said private security became and were the first line of enforcement. There is considerable disagreement amongst those various witnesses about when and by whom that decision was made," counsel assisting Rachel Ellyard says.

"No one is claiming ownership of the decision, even though no one seems to have spoken against it at the time and no one who might have been the decision-maker seems to suggest if it had been them, it would have been a bad decision," Ms Ellyard says.

Q: "Do you know who it was?"
Andrews: "No, I don't ... This is why I set up the board of inquiry or recommended it to the governor, to get that answer, and quite a few others, Ms Ellyard."

Q: "Because we really should know, shouldn't we? We should be able to say you made a decision to not only spend that much money but to give such an important function in this infection control program."
Andrews: "Yes, it is one of a number of very important questions."

"My understanding of collective decision making does not remove accountability," the premier says.

Q: "It is alarming here, isn't it, to the extent it was a collective decision, no one seems to have understood they were a part of it?"
Andrews: "Yes, it is very disappointing."

"These are some of the issues I confronted which saw me on the 30th (of June), advise the governor to appoint the board (of inquiry). I couldn't get answers to these questions," the premier says.

Q: "This quarantine program was set up to be a first line of defence against arriving infections from overseas. There is no place for confusion, whether in a hotel or upper management about where accountability and responsibility lie?
Andrews: "No, there is no room for that."

"The fact that there is no agreement between agencies and departments is not desirable in any way," the premier says.

"This was a program designed to stop this wildly infectious virus spreading from returning travellers into the Victorian community that has clearly happened. And that is clearly a failure. And that is clearly the product of at least one error, perhaps multiple errors," he says.

There's been one application for cross-examination of the premier - Arthur Moses SC for Unified Security. He says the premier made statements that security guards were "to blame for what's gone on here". "We're entitled to know where did he get that information from," he says.

The inquiry is being shown the transcript of the premier's interview with 7.30's Leigh Sales on July 1.

The premier told Leigh Sales: "We have some very clear suspicions about what's gone on here. There are a number of staff who despite knowing about infection control protocols have decided to make a number of errors."

Mr Moses: "Sitting here today, can you recall what infection control protocols you were referring to when you made that statement to Ms Sales?"
Andrews: "I'm able to make a reasonable assumption, I would have thought. But the answer is no, Mr Moses."

"Mistakes have been made in this program and answers are required. Those mistakes are unacceptable to me. I want to thank you, Madam Chair, and the board of inquiry and all your staff for the work you are doing and will do," the premier says.

"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," the premier says.

"I want to say that 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," he says.

The premier has left the witness chair and I am done live tweeting!

I will be back for margarita content later this evening. Happy Friday gang.

Latest Threads Unrolled: