Yesterday, the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry held an extraordinary meeting to discuss contradictory and omitted evidence that has come to light after witness testimony finished earlier this month.
You can watch short videos of the extraordinary meeting here and here.
Following the meeting, Daniel Andrews’ former right hand man, DPC secretary Chris Eccles, Victoria’s ex-top cop Graham Ashton and Health Department secretary Kym Peake have joined Chief Health Officer (CHO) Brett Sutton in being required to provide further affidavit statements to the hotel quarantine inquiry clarifying why their testimony to the Inquiry was contradicted by later evidence (i.e. phone records and/or emails), as well as why key documents were deliberately withheld from evidence only to emerge later.
Senior counsel assisting Tony Neal QC told board chair Jennifer Coate the developments impact the inquiry’s work as it approaches its 6 November reporting date. Chair Jennifer Coate then stated that the inquiry may need to be extended to get to the bottom of these issues.
Of particular interest is a potentially 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”.
Mr Neal said the documents were not previously produced to the board, despite the department being asked to provide documents in line with the board’s terms of reference…
A further two emails were also received by the board on Tuesday including one from Dr Finn Romanes, headed “Governance of mandatory detention implementation”…
Ms Coate said until further material requested by the board is received, she cannot determine the next steps, including if an extension to the November 6 deadline is needed.
“Most unfortunately, these new developments, it has to be said, may unsettle the due date for the report,” she said.
If each of these events were isolated incidents, you could put them down to human error.
But when there are many cases of contradictory and omitted evidence, as well as collective amnesia, a pattern emerges that screams “cover-up”.
Nobody has been able to tell the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry after hearing 25 days of evidence who decided to use private security instead of police and ADF. Instead, they claim it was a collective decision (impossible in government) and a “creeping assumption”.
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.
This comes on top of Premier Daniel Andrews telling a parliamentary inquiry in August that Victoria was never offered ADF support from the federal government, only to then find out that support was offered multiple times and explicitly acknowledged twice by Daniel Andrews on 27 March.
The whole fiasco has descended into a farce and has “cover-up” written all over it.
The Hotel Quarantine Inquiry must get to the bottom of the issues and deliver concrete answers and accountability for what has become the biggest public health and economic disaster in the state’s history.
Otherwise a royal commission is warranted.
