Health News at Your Fingertips

In Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry news.

Victoria Health has updated its ‘get checked if you were here’ list.

This should make for very interesting reading.

In light of Shane Patton’s ‘rare discretion’ comments, this report from Josh Taylor on who has been getting fined is worth taking a look at:

As the Victorian government ramps up penalties to $5,000 for breaching Covid-19 gathering rules, statistics show young people received almost half of all fines dished out during the state’s first wave, while the South Sudanese and Aboriginal communities received an outsize number of fines.

Data released by the Crime Statistics Agency last week shows there were 6,062 breaches of Covid-19 rules associated with 5,474 people during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Victoria.

The average age was 29.5 years, and just one in four of those fined were women. Approximately 42% of those were under the age of 24.

According to the data provided to community legal centres, of the over 6,000 recorded breaches, there were just 67 warning notices issued. Only six businesses were issued with fines.

Throughout the pandemic, Victoria police has been releasing daily updates on the number of fines worth $1,652 issued the previous day, highlighting some of the most flagrant breaches, which some refer to as the “Covidiots” of the day. But it doesn’t give a full picture of how police are fining people for Covid-19 public health order breaches.

The testing rates in NSW have dropped to levels which have authorities worried – particularly as the clock ticks down on the incubation period for any cases associated with a taxi driver who worked while (unknowingly, it would seem) infectious with Covid.

John McVeigh’s resignation from Groom will spark the third by-election in his political career. He quit Toowoomba Regional Council to run for the Queensland state parliament and then quit state parliament to run for federal parliament.

His seat though, is the safest government seat in the country (against Labor) so it won’t cause much of a wave.

Victoria police commissioner Shane Patton says police will only use discretion when handing out the $5,000 fines for breaking social distancing restrictions in very rare cases.

What that means is, if you are caught breaking the restrictions, more likely than not, you will receive the record fine.

I don’t think that anyone in Victoria could claim any ignorance that they shouldn’t be gathering together.

It has been stated by everybody, from the premier, right through to the chief health officer, police continually outlining that. We’re continually stating how many infringements we issue, how many warnings we give, and the frustration that we encounter.

And we’ve all heard the highlighted matters about people hiding in places when we go there to parties.

We saw this this weekend as well. Some people were hiding.

It defies logic. It defies common sense. It is incredibly frustrating. The use of discretion in a circumstance such as this is only going to be an absolute extremity. And I can’t imagine what that would be.

On that supreme court challenge to the Melbourne (now lifted) curfew, AAP has filed a report:

An aspiring Liberal MP is pressing on with her challenge over Melbourne’s coronavirus curfew, despite the government scrapping it.

The curfew ended at 5am on Monday, just five hours before a supreme court trial was due to begin on the action brought by Mornington Peninsula cafe owner Michelle Loielo.

She had asked for the order to be quashed, or that there be a declaration the curfew was inconsistent with her human rights.

Her barrister Marcus Clarke described the announcement by premier Daniel Andrews scrapping the curfew on Sunday as a surprise.

He has re-filed an originating motion in the case, changing the argument for a declaration of relief to the past tense.

They’re now arguing that the curfew “was unlawful and invalid” and that it “violated” Loielo’s human rights.

Victoria’s solicitor general Kristen Walker QC said the first order sought to overturn the curfew couldn’t go ahead any more “because there is nothing to quash”.

Opposition leader Michael O’Brien labelled the timing of the decision to overturn the curfew as cynical.

“Isn’t it interesting that just today, as a Liberal party member is going to the supreme court to challenge the legality of the curfew, the premier decided yesterday that it’s not necessary any more and we’re withdrawing it immediately,” he told ABC Radio National.

Andrews denied the decision to lift the curfew had anything to do with the legal challenge.

Just an update on the upcoming Queensland election.

All sides, at this stage, seem to be pointing to a collapse of the One Nation vote – with the LNP the main beneficiary. The opposition has seen its primary vote increase in recent polls, and that looks like playing out on the actual poll day.

That is a problem for Labor – it gets enough of a slice of One Nation preferences in north Queensland to get it across the line in some key seats – particularly in Townsville, so its campaign strategists are worried.

The LNP needs nine seats to win government – but that is not out of question – Queensland can swing hard. And let’s not forget about the possibility of minority government.

Labor only needs to lose two seats to lose government – and Townsville is looking increasingly shaky. Pumicestone is a potential pick up, but it is not over-egging to say the Palaszczuk government is very nervous about the coming election.

Queensland heads to the polls on 31 October.

The supreme court challenge to the Melbourne curfew will be going ahead.

Liberal party candidate hopeful, Michelle Loielo says despite the curfew having been lifted, she wants a ruling on whether or not it was a breach of her human rights.

With the Victorian curfew no longer in place, Victoria police have said they will be increasing patrols to ensure people are not breaking the remaining restrictions.

Josh Taylor will have a story on the Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry very soon.

In the meantime, AAP has put together this report:

Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry has heard the program failed due to a “multitude of decisions, actions and inactions”.

Delivering closing submissions to the inquiry on Monday, counsel assisting Tony Neal QC said there was no suggestion those who set up the program worked other than with “the best of intentions and to the best of their ability”.

“Bad faith or corruption is not what the evidence shows,” he said.

Neal said public servants were given just 36 hours to set up the program, following a national cabinet announcement on 27 March.

Within two and a half months, the “hastily assembled program failed at two locations … and with disastrous consequences”, he said.

“It will not be suggested that a single decision or a single actor caused the hotel quarantine program to fail in its objective of stopping the spread of Covid-19 into the broader community,” Neal said.

“A multitude of decisions, actions and inactions, many of which compounded the effect of the other, ultimately expressed itself in the outbreaks which subverted the very reason for the existence of a hotel quarantine program.”

Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus, which resulted in more than 18,000 new infections and 750 deaths, can be traced back to outbreaks among security guards at the Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza hotels in mid-May and June.

The inquiry has held 25 days of public hearings and heard from 63 witnesses, including returned travellers, security guards, hotel managers, senior public servants, ministers and premier Daniel Andrews.

But no one has been able to say who made the decision to use private security guards, rather than the police or the Australian Defence Force, who assisted in other states.

The premier apologised unreservedly to Victorians when he appeared before the inquiry on Friday.

“Mistakes have been made in this program and answers are required,” Andrews said.

“I want to make it very clear to each and every member of the Victorian community that I am sorry for what has occurred here.”

The three lawyers for the inquiry will each make submissions on Monday, before the $3m inquiry hands down its findings on 6 November.

Retired judge Jennifer Coate heads the board of inquiry.