As it happened: Victorian MP Jenny Mikakos disputes Health Department's responsibility for guard quarantine procedures

For those who haven't had enough of Jenny Mikakos today, we've just published this analysis from investigative reporter Ben Schneiders on why the Health Minister hasn't yet cleared her desk after new calls to sack her were published this morning.

Until then, we have all the latest coronavirus news, including calls to release curfew advice and fines issued to five adults attending a children's birthday party picnic, on our free live blog.

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• In a statement, Ms Mikakos said she did not believe it was her Health Department’s role to ensure private security guards and other workers in quarantine hotels were adhering to infection control measures such as wearing personal protective equipment. In hindsight, she said, she would not support the use of private security guards in hotel quarantine.
• The Health Minister also admitted that even though the Department of Health and Human Services was the lead government agency on the hotels program, she was never consulted on how it was set up and was not involved in or consulted about the initial decisions that were made. "With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been desirable if I had been," Ms Mikakos replied.
• She also said that by mid-June, she believed there were “too many cooks spoiling the broth” in the hotels program and "worked to have all the aspects of the program moved to one department, being the DJCS [Department of Justice and Community Safety]".

• Ms Mikakos also told the inquiry she wasn't consulted about the decision to sideline Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton as the state controller in charge of the COVID-19 pandemic. In earlier evidence heard by the inquiry, the Health Department's deputy secretary and secretary decided to appoint someone other than Professor Sutton, claiming he was too busy in his lead advisory role and being the face of the pandemic.
• Ms Mikakos gave evidence on the same day as an explosive letter from the Health Workers Union demanding Premier Daniel Andrews sack her. The letter claimed that locked-down Victorians are paying the price for her incompetence. Health Workers Union secretary Diana Asmar wrote that Ms Mikakos be removed for "breathtaking incompetence".
• In response, a letter from the much larger Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation defended Ms Mikakos, saying she was a "hard-working minister who is across her portfolio".

She said: "We did from the month of March to the middle of the year go from, I think it was 57 to about 2600 people."

ADF personnel have also been used for testing sites, Ms Mikakos said.

"So, just to be clear on the ADF offers of support, I was aware and gratefully accepted assistance from the ADF in relation to these types of roles. I wasn't aware of any offer of assistance in relation to providing an alternative workforce for the hotel quarantine program until I read about this in a media report, I believe on 25 June."

Ms Mikakos said a formal request for ADF help was usually made by Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp or the chief of police.

The inquiry has heard Mr Crisp requested 850 ADF troops on June 25 to replace security guards, but the request was rescinded.

Ms Mikakos said she wasn't "sure exactly what request" was made by Mr Crisp.

"All I can say is that my department understood very clearly from me that I ... had a very strong view that we needed to replace the security guard workforce with an alternative workforce, and they were working assiduously to bring that about," she said.

"But I was not personally involved in any request..."

NSW and Victoria, she said, were bearing the brunt of international arrivals and there was an urgent need for a quarantine program.

MSS Security lawyer Anna Robertson said it was incumbent on Ms Mikakos to review the foundation structures of hotel quarantine and to find out what other states and territories were doing.

"As the minister for health in our state, you have accountability to the public for their health and safety," Ms Robertson said.

"I am responsible for my department, absolutely the buck stops with me for my department," Ms Mikakos said.

She said her department "inherited" Victoria's program from the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions, which set up the program on the first day.

"On the first instance, on the day the decision was made, that program sat entirely with the DJPR and it has then involved a number of agencies for many months," Ms Mikakos said.

"That's not the model we had in place in Victoria," Ms Robertson said.

Ms Mikakos said she was not "really in a position to provide a definitive answer to that".

Ms Robertson said that in Western Australia, security guards are inducted by the Health Department on their first day of work.

"In Victoria, there was no formal induction provided to security by the Department of Health and Human Services," she said.

Ms Mikakos said again she was not in a position to have that knowledge and the contracts in Victoria were with the Jobs Department.

In South Australia and Western Australia, Ms Robertson said quarantine detainees were not allowed to leave the rooms, unlike Victoria where quarantined travellers were given fresh air breaks.

She said a centralisation of roles and responsibilities needed to occur.

The risk materialised, counsel assisting the inquiry Ben Ihle said, leading to a second wave that caused 18,374 new COVID-19 cases and 752 deaths.

Ms Mikakos said the hotel outbreaks "sadly sparked a second wave, something that I'm profoundly saddened about and I was working to ensure we could mitigate the risks as quickly as possible in the month of June".

"Tragically we've had many more deaths during this second wave," she said.

Ms Mikakos wanted Victoria Police, Alfred Health and other health services staff, Protective Services officers, Sheriffs and a “small number” of Australian Defence Force members to take control of the hotels.

However, the Health Minister wrote in her statement to the inquiry that this was rejected by the Victorian government.

"I understand that Ms Skilbeck’s proposed options were not supported by other parts of the government," she said.

Ms Mikakos said she only became aware of Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp’s request for 850 ADF personnel on June 25, which was cancelled hours later, via the media.

"Personally, I did not have any concerns about use of the ADF in the HQP," she wrote in her statement.

"ADF personnel had already been used successfully by the DHHS at testing sites, to train and supervise contact tracers as we were significantly growing the contact tracing team at that time, and in logistics roles at the SCC [State Control Centre]."

Police Minister Lisa Neville told the inquiry yesterday that she too only found out about Mr Crisp's overturned request for ADF members via the media, which made her "pretty cranky".