QANGOs and Ministers fail on Quarantine
Western Victoria MP Bev McArthur has questioned the role of multiple Government agencies in the COVID quarantine hotels at the Stamford Plaza and Rydges on Swanston Hotels. She also highlighted new concerns from within the security industry about the tendering process and the slack approach taken by Government appointed security firms.
Mrs McArthur said: “The buck stops with Ministers, and Lisa Neville and Jenny Mikakos should take responsibility for this disaster.”
“But I’m particularly angry that the massive levels of bureaucracy which burden Victoria’s businesses in everyday life – put in place in the name of employee rights and workplace health and safety – have proved totally ineffective.”
“A security firm I have spoken to was offered work on this project, and was totally appalled by the slack approach taken by the main contractors. They had developed no proper operating procedure for infection control and had no answers about the training received by staff. The wage-level offered also rang alarm bells, and led the firm involved to decline any involvement in the operation.”
“It has now become apparent these fears were fully justified. We hear of guards with little or no training in infection control, inadequate understanding of PPE, and a total lack of any proper leadership or oversight."
"Allegations of ghosting (paying of non-existent staff), cash-payments to guards claiming JobKeeper, and staff with second jobs elsewhere are bad enough, but the appalling stories of guards sleeping on the job and sleeping with the quarantined travellers are an indication the lax attitude taken to awarding the contracts and no quality standard insistence.”
“It is clear this lax attitude starts with Ministers at the top of the chain of responsibility and spreads right down to Companies contracted by government and the workers in the hotels.”
“As in any big organisation, the single most important factor is leadership, and that is what has been catastrophically absent here. Ministers Mikakos and Neville should resign immediately, and the Premier must explain how his Government could treat so important a project in so slipshod a manner.”
Mrs McArthur questioned the Government’s grip on the subcontracting process, and the length of time taken to react to the unfolding outbreak.
“It is clear the Government completely lost control of this process – were they even aware that contractors were selected for low prices not high standards, on this uniquely important project?”
“I have been told some individuals offered to work for $15-20/hour paid in cash, well below the $30/h award rate, with the clear implication they would be fraudulently claiming JobKeeper. For this to happen on any State Government project would be disgraceful – on one as important as the health of Victorians is negligence of the highest order.”
“In the operational phase too, it is clear action should have been taken sooner. Rumours abounded, and yet nothing was done until well after the infections began to show up weeks later.”
Mrs McArthur further questioned the lack of effective oversight from the many Government agencies set up precisely to guarantee security industry training and practices, and ensure workplace safety.
“This Government gold-plates health and safety, licensing restrictions and employment red-tape, and creates endless quangos to police these matters. Yet when it really matters they have all been shown to fail completely.”
“It’s not just about the Health Department’s failure to protect public health. Where was Worksafe here? Had the guards involved undergone training – for example the Federal Government’s online COVID control programme? Can the Victoria Police Licensing Division guarantee all were certified? Has the Andrews Government broken its own Labour Hire laws through this multiple subcontracting? My information suggests this may well be the case.
Mrs McArthur concluded:
“Daniel Andrews and his Ministers have made the wrong call at every stage on this. Ideological disdain caused them to reject the army, and a catastrophic failure in leadership and oversight brought about a pyramid of subcontracting with money skimmed-off and the chain of command diluted at every remove.”
“Ministers failed to monitor the operation, and the myriad state organisations responsible for public health, workplace safety, and security licensing have shown themselves utterly toothless. This was an utterly avoidable crisis, and the failings it shows go to the very heart of the Labor Government’s competence to govern.”
3 July 2020