Lawyers say that Victoria’s Chief Health Officer (CHO) Brett Sutton is among several government officials who could potentially face criminal charges over their evidence to the inquiry into the state’s hotel quarantine program.
Sutton recently came under scrutiny over revelations that he had instructed Health Department lawyers to withhold an email from the inquiry which cast doubt on his sworn evidence regarding just when he became aware that private security firms were to be used.
Penalties for breaching the Victorian Inquiries Act 2014 include jail and substantial fines:
Senior lawyers have told The Australian there is an emerging view within the legal community that several witnesses — including former top public servant Chris Eccles and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton — could be in breach of the Victorian Inquiries Act 2014.
Sections 86-90 of the act set out a range of offences relating to evidence and the tendering of documents, including failing to comply with a notice to produce, an offence to hinder, obstruct, or cause serious disruption to proceeding, and an offence to make false or misleading statements or produce false or misleading documents or other things.
The offences carry penalties, with a breach of section 86 carrying a fine of almost $40,000 and two years’ jail. Section 90 carries a fine of almost $20,000 and 12 months’ prison.
“You will see the offence provisions which clearly make it an offence to fail to produce documents called for under a notice to produce and to give misleading evidence,” one eminent legal figures said.
The lies to the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry have flowed thick and fast.
This month alone we’ve witnessed Premier Daniel Andrews’ right hand man, Chris Eccles, resign after telephone records showed he phoned then-police chief Graham Ashton on March 27, the day the hotel quarantine inquiry was set up. This contradicted claims made by Eccles to the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry that he had not spoken to Ashton.
We witnessed Victorian Emergency Management Commissioner, Andrew Crisp, retract testimony stating that he had briefed the Police Minister and Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville in the days leading up to the hotel quarantine scheme being launched.
We’ve seen CHO Brett Sutton telling the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry that he wasn’t aware that private security was to be used to guard quarantine hotels, only for explicit emails to emerge showing Sutton knew on 27 March.
Arguably the most scandalous omission was a key email entitled “Information – Chain of Command – people in detention”, which was deliberately withheld from the Inquiry:
Counsel assisting, Tony Neal, has accused Department of Health and Human Services lawyers of failing to provide a potentially key email to the inquiry until last week, because it didn’t believe it relevant.
The email was in documents the DHHS lawyers provided the inquiry last week, and headed: ‘Information – Chain of Command – people in detention’.
The email is from then deputy public health commander Dr Finn Romanes, dated April 1, and addressed to a large number of DHHS officials.
Dr Romanes says in the email the chain of command began with Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, followed by his deputy, then the deputy public health commander.
“All policy and oversight of people in detention is being handled in a strict chain of command, from Chief Health Officer to Deputy CHO to Deputy Public Health Commander Planning (Finn Romanes) Director Health Regulation and Reform (Meena Naidu) to Authorised Officers,” he says in the email.
“It is important that all direction, policy, reporting and arrangements do not break this chain.
“No policies, directions, exemptions, reporting, meetings to agree policy on these people or other activity outside this chain please, unless requested or overseen by the chain.
“This strict view is vital to safeguard the wellbeing and duty of care owed by the state to these people and legal and other risks to the department and its staff, who are administering this detention regime on behalf of the Deputy Chief Health Officer and Chief Health Officer.”
In a cover letter providing the email, the DHHS solicitors advised they weren’t considered relevant.
However, Mr Neal disagreed, telling board chair Jennifer Coate: “This document on its face goes to matters which occupied a considerable amount of the Board’s time, and you may consider it adds some weight in one direction or another to your deliberations as to who was in charge of the detention regime”.
The whole Hotel Quarantine Inquiry has “cover-up” written all over it.
Nobody has been able to tell the Inquiry after hearing 25 days of evidence who decided to use private security instead of police and ADF. Instead, all parties claim it was a collective decision (impossible in government) and a “creeping assumption”.
It’s time for penalties to be handed out for perverting the course of justice.
Better yet, let’s have a full blown royal commission. The stink runs deep.
