• Further breaches from Victoria’s hotel quarantine system;
• Covid testing centres experiencing multi-hour wait times over the New Year period, as government locks down state borders leaving Victorians on holiday stranded;
• Victorian Auditor-General investigates government’s hotel quarantine contracts with security companies;
• Unified Security prepares to sue the Victorian Government;
• WorkSafe Victoria inquiry continuing with potential prosecution of the Premier, Ministers and government Departments;
• Hotel quarantine operators who never hosted returned travellers paid millions;
• Hotel quarantine workers paid full salary despite not working a single day;
• Government apologises for incorrectly quarantining Brisbane travellers;
• Former hotel quarantine worker complains of ‘hostile and intimidating behaviour’;
• Novotel’s manager and head of infection control fired over 51 infection control breaches;
• Covid-19 Quarantine Victoria’s general manager of infection control stood down over Covid protocol breaches;
• Leaked incident reports document months of hotel quarantine protocol breaches;
• Epidemiologists and hygienists criticise flaws in hotel quarantine;
• Five-day lockdown of Victoria in response to Covid escaping hotel quarantine (impact to businesses over Valentine’s Day period);
• Use of nebuliser blamed by government for Victoria’s third wave with official leaked documents showing the government was wrong;
• Exposure sites listed by DoH incorrectly or without prior notification of establishment;
• Andrews declares Victoria’s hotel quarantine has ‘higher standards’ than other states’;
• Initial poor uptake of government QR code system with Parliament choosing its own stand-alone system;
• Police Association Victoria attacks Covid fine leniency;
• Jim’s Mowing founder to legally challenge last year’s Victorian lockdowns;
• Beyond Blue experiences increase in calls during snap 5-day lockdown and Lockdown 4;
• Academics find Covid lockdowns affected Victorian children more than in other states;
• Permit system to re-enter Victoria from NSW quickly overwhelmed, plagued with technical difficulties;
• Almost 5,000 prisoners to be released early due to the pandemic;
• Crime Statistics Agency 2020 figures show significant jumps in family violence, and drug and sex offences during lockdowns;
• Government announces Mickleham quarantine facility, demands Federal Government money to pay for it;
• Avalon Airport on agenda to host quarantine facility despite close relationship between owners and Premier;
• Alarmist language and rebuke by health experts;
• Only 13% of small businesses supported during Lockdown 4; and,
• Failure by the State Government to follow through with its mandatory vaccination legislation, including the revelation only half of Victoria’s paramedics have had the vaccine.
Source: Liberal-National Opposition