ANALYSIS So who takes responsibility over hotel quarantine? Not the ministers
For two months the inquiry into hotel quarantine has been leading to this point; a political reckoning where government ministers responsible for a program that unleashed a second wave epidemic upon this state are held to account.
Yet, on March 27, the day state and territory governments were forced to respond urgently to a National Cabinet decision to subject returned travellers to mandatory quarantine in hotels, no one sought their input about how this might work. Instead, for reasons no one has ever explained to Pakula, a decision was taken as early as the next day to shift responsibility for the program to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Neville said she was first told about the hotel quarantine program by someone from within the Department of Premier and Cabinet. She said both she and police chief Graham Ashton learnt about the plan to enforce the program with private security guards rather than police from Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp.
If Neville was troubled by this she gave no outward sign. According to her evidence, she took no steps in the days that followed to elicit further information about what was going on.
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