Summary
- Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville and Jobs Minister Martin Pakula both gave evidence to the inquiry today and both pointed the finger at the Health Department, saying it was in charge of Victoria's ill-fated hotel quarantine program.
- The $3 million inquiry, led by former judge Jennifer Coate, is investigating how virus outbreaks among staff and private security guards at two Melbourne quarantine hotels – the Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza – seeded Victoria's catastrophic second coronavirus wave.
- Police Minister Lisa Neville joined the rapidly growing group of people who say they do not know who made the decision to use private security contractors in quarantine hotels instead of police or defence force troops.
- Jobs Minister Martin Pakula defended his department's decision to hire Unified Security, which was not a preferred government provider and was not known to any unions. The inquiry has previously heard Unified started subcontracting its work within the first few days of the quarantine program.
- Health Department boss Kym Peake failed to tell her minister, Jenny Mikakos, about serious welfare concerns held by Victoria's three most senior health experts over the disastrous hotel quarantine system.
You can watch today's hearing live, below:
Latest updates
"You know that old quote, 'true leaders take responsibility'?" Arthur Moses, SC, asked Health Department boss Kym Peake.
"Do you accept sitting here today there were deficiencies in the hotel quarantine program because your department did not discharge the functions that it had been provided for?"
Ms Peake said: "No, I don't."
DHHS boss Kym Peake has been questioned for hours at the inquiry.
Her following statement made for the most emotional part of the inquiry today
"Please let me just say two things. It is a matter of profound regret to me as the secretary of Department of Health and Humand Services that we experienced a second wave in Victoria and all of the consequences that came with that, but I know my staff and the staff of DJPR [Department of Jobs, Prectins and Regions] spent thousands and thousands, hundreds of hours seeking to prevent that outcome," she said.
"I know that there was enormous care and diligence. It wasn't perfect but there was enormous care and dilgence to continuously address risks as they arose and I am of the view that the control structures that were in place were appropriate.
"There are absolutely lessons and improvements to take, but the way that you put that proposition to me I cannot accept."
That ends Mr Moses' cross-examination of Ms Peake.
Kym Peake said the COVID "hot hotels", such as the Rydges on Swanston in Carlton, did not need to operate in a similar way to an infectious diseases ward in a hospital.
The lawyer representing Unified Security, Arthur Moses, QC, showed Ms Peake an August 25 healthcare workers report.
The report highlights that 69 per cent of all healthcare workers who caught COVID-19 in the second wave, caught it at work.
Rydges on Swanston hotel, the source of 90 per cent of Victoria's second-wave COVID-19 cases.Credit:Penny Stephens
It identifies risk factors around having multiple coronavirus patients in the same clinical space, in addition to "older ventilation systems that are less effective at re-circulating air, thereby reducing optimum air flow".
The report says healthcare workers were contracting coronavirus when putting on personal protective equipment and interacting with their colleagues.
Mr Moses asked Ms Peake if the Rydges on Swanston should have been operating akin to an infectious diseases ward in hospital.
"No I do not," Ms Peake replied.
"I think the hotel is very different to a patient ward."
The terse back-and-forth between Health Department boss Kym Peake and Arthur Moses, SC, has continued.
Asked if she ensured a risk assessment was carried out for the work of private security guards, Ms Peake said that was the responsibility of the Jobs Department.
"Are you finished? Is that the answer to my question?" Mr Moses asked.
Ms Peake replied "yes", before Mr Moses asked if she had checked whether a risk assessment was undertaken.
"I expected the responsible secretary would take responsibility for contract management, yes," she replied.
"What about infection control within those hotels? Who had responsibility for oversight of infection control?" Mr Moses asked.
"I understood that each employer has critical occupational health and safety responsibilities," Ms Peake replied, saying the workforce was responsible.
She said guidance was provided to the hotel program workforce and received.
Ms Peake said training of staff was a matter for each employer.
The lawyer for Unified Security, Arthur Moses, SC, is cross-examining Health Department boss Kym Peake.
Ms Peake denies she has been ducking the responsibility her department had for hotel quarantine.
DHHS boss Kym Peake accepts her department had responsibility for the hotel quarantine program, but says that the responsibility was shared with the Department of Jobs.
Mr Moses asked her whether her evidence that hotel quarantine was a joint operation with shared accountability with the Jobs Department was "an attempt to deflect responsibility from the department you are head".
Ms Peake began to answer the question, but Mr Moses intervened, asking for a 'yes' or 'no' answer.
"My response is no, it wasn't an attempt in any way to deflect from the responsibility of my department," she said.
Mr Moses said the language "shared accountability" was "bureaucratic speak for avoiding the responsibility of your department".
"I do not accept that at all," Ms Peake said.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos has legal representation in the inquiry, Georgina Schoff, QC.
However, Ms Schoff just told the inquiry she didn't need to ask any questions of the head of the minister's department.
It has emerged today that all three ministers - Martin Pakula, Lisa Neville and Ms Mikakos - all have their own and separate legal representation.
The inquiry is now running over time. Today's hearing was due to end at 4pm, but Justice Jennifer Coate is keen for today to be last day Health Department boss Kym Peake is called to give evidence.
Kym Peake has conceded there were shortcomings in the early days of the hotel quarantine program, but still refused to say her department was completely responsible.
After a back-and-forth between counsel assisting the inquiry Ben Ihle and Ms Peake about potential shortcomings in hotel quarantine, inquiry chair Jennifer Coate intervened.
Would it be fair to say, Ms Coate asked, that your short answer is yes there were shortcomings, but your department addressed issues when they were identified.
DHHS secretary Kym Peake.
"I think that's right Madam Chair, but also, it wasn't just my department," Ms Peake said.
She said the Jobs Department had responsibility for the program too.
Ms Peake said governance of the program wasn't in place on day one and it took a couple of weeks for that to happen.
Asked if there were shortcomings in the oversight of health and wellbeing services, Ms Peake said: "I think definitely there was important work that was done to consolidate all of the services" but daily checks were taking place.
In relation to infection control, Ms Peake said the "workforces that were involved did not have requisite knowledge and skills that were required under their contracts" and the outbreak investigators identified "additional cleaning requirements that needed to be put in place".
"As we learnt more about the virus, there were and have been continuous improvement in infection prevention control," she said.
Ms Peake said there were "critical vulnerabilities" with the program and a new model was put in place with new security and extra infection control in place.
Premier Daniel Andrews requested Professor Brett Sutton review the new hotel quarantine model, but the Chief Health Officer's advice was never sought for the program in the first place, the inquiry heard.
The inquiry has been shown an email Health Department boss Kym Peake sent to Professor Sutton after her department was replaced as the control agency of the quarantine program by the Department of Justice in July.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton.Credit:Eddie Jim
"The Premier has requested that you review the proposed new model - particularly the approach to infection control, to provide confidence to government that the reset approach will mitigate risks attendant in accommodation potentially positive travellers," the email reads.
Professor Sutton was not asked to review the program's original model, the inquiry heard.
Ms Peake said she did ask the public health team to develop infection prevention control advice for the program from the outset.
She agreed with counsel assisting the inquiry, Ben Ihle, that a designated infection prevention control officer should be on-site at all quarantine hotels.
There was not an infection prevention control expert on-site at the designated "hot hotel" for COVID-positive detainees, the Rydges on Swanston, nor at any of the other hotels when the program ran from the end of March until July.
"I certainly think as we learnt more about the virus and as we became more aware of the risks of environmental contamination and we saw more outbreaks in the hospital context, it is certainly a valuable feature to have going forward," Ms Peake said.
There have been some tense moments this afternoon between counsel assisting the inquiry Ben Ihle and the lawyer representing the Department of Health and Human Services, Claire Harris, QC.
On the issue of shortcomings in the hotel quarantine program, Ms Harris is of the view Mr Ihle is repeatedly asking the same questions and expecting Health Department boss Kym Peake to answer 'yes' or 'no'.
DHHS secretary Kym Peake giving evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday.
"It's a very unfair question. Ms Peake has answered in a very considered and candid way. Some matters are very complex and are not susceptible to a yes or no answer," Ms Harris said.
"Trying to reduce some of these matters into simplistic answers, with great respect, it not always possible."
Mr Ihle said: "What I'm trying to do Madam Chair is have the witness engage with the question about whether as she sits here today on the 23rd of September she believes there were shortcomings in respect to those three critical aspects over which her department has had significant responsibilities.
"Now we've had lots of discursive answers, but not engagement with the question of shortcomings."
Ms Peake replied: "My absolute answer to that would be that there was continuous improvement as each risk and issue was identified. There was continuous improvement throughout the program."
She also said "it wasn't just my department", adding the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions was also addressing issues the quarantine program as they arose.
Health Department boss Kym Peake said she was "deeply concerned" that systemic issues in the security guard workforce were a risk to the hotel quarantine program.
But she has told the inquiry she didn't know of those issues until after COVID-19 outbreaks occurred at the Rydges on Swanston hotel in Carlton in May and at the Stamford Plaza in June.
Outbreak investigators identified problems with cleaning, infection prevention control measures and with the use of protective gear, particularly by the guards.
The Stamford Plaza - the source of a major outbreak partly responsible for Victoria's second coronavirus wave. Credit:Getty Images
"I was deeply concerned there was a more systemic issue and the insecure casualised nature of the workforce," Ms Peake said.
But it was "not something I had been aware of and was a risk to the program".
Ms Peake said she knew there were "individual incidents" that were "managed locally" before then, but it wasn't until the middle of June that "it crystallised there was a systemic risk about the casualised nature of the workforce and subcontracting arrangements".
She said there "wasn't an antenna, if you like, wobbling" that security guards would be inappropriate for hotel quarantine given they work in hospitals.
After becoming aware of those concerns, Ms Peake briefed Health Minister Jenny Mikakos and began looking at an alternative workforce to provide security.
Health Department boss Kym Peake did not brief Health Minister Jenny Mikakos about two reports that identified problems with the hotel quarantine program.
The department secretary commissioned two investigations in April by Safer Care Victoria into a suspected suicide at a quarantine hotel and a delay in transferring a sick hotel quarantine detainee to hospital, who wound up in intensive care.
Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos was not briefed on the results of investigations into failures of the hotel quarantine program.Credit:James Ross
The reports were completed in June, but Safer Care raised various issues as their investigation progressed.
They identified several problems with health and wellbeing services for returned travellers in hotel quarantine.
Ms Peake said she didn't brief Ms Mikakos, telling the inquiry that in her mind, the issues raised in the reports had already been addressed.
She said a briefing would have normally occurred a "couple of weeks later" and by that time, the Justice Department had taken over the quarantine program.
She said she ensured those findings were handed over to the Justice Department.
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can call Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. Beyond Blue's coronavirus mental wellbeing support service is on 1800 512 348.
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2020-09-23 07:32:00Z
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