Melburnians will need to wait until at least mid-November for news about travel with international flights hinging on the findings of a key report.
While announcing 14 new infections and eight more deaths on Friday, Premier Daniel Andrews revealed it would “make no sense” to have international flights land in Melbourne until officials know exactly why hotel quarantine failed the first time.
“It makes no sense to ask for a report and then have planes landing,” he said.
“Depends on what is in that final report in terms of what system, structures, what topics they go to. We have reset the program, we are doing some work in the background to make sure that we can respond to that as quickly as possible, but it is not possible for us to anticipate what will be in that final report.
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READ NOW“I have tried to be as clear as I can on multiple occasions that we will wait for that report before I ring the Prime Minister and say flights can come back. We need to be absolutely certain that whatever system is in place, that it is as robust as it possibly can be.”
When questioned about what “background work” was happening behind the scenes amid the ongoing hotel quarantine inquiry, the Premier said: “When I have got an announcement to make, I will. I‘m not going to foreshadow it you, that won’t be until the inquiry hands down its report.”
The inquiry has since established much of Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus can be linked to the botched hotel quarantine program.
It’s heard evidence from key witness across all the hotels involved, with disturbing revelations of private security guards sleeping on the job and harassing hotel staff and quarantine guests.
It’s raised key questions such as why private security guards were hired to oversee the program instead of Australian Defence Force personnel and who made the final call.
Government ministers and senior bureaucrats have continued to claim ignorance on the issues, with Health Minister Jenny Mikakos the latest witness to vague out.
All eyes will be on Mr Andrews when he fronts the inquiry at 2.15pm on Friday.