This is what Daniel Andrews was dealing with. From Peta Credlin: Too much we’re not being told about Victoria’s hotel quarantine fiasco. And while who made the decision is important (here’s the answer, it was Dan), more important to me is why he chose some local mates over the ADF.
The Premier’s chief of staff was the first person Eccles briefed on the national cabinet decision to introduce hotel quarantine. Jobs Department head Simon Phemister then put the process in train that led to the engagement of Unified Security, a company not on the list of preferred tenderers, but that somehow won the lion’s share of the work — a $30m contract for three months’ work….
How could Phemister have set up the private security contracts without knowing how this had come to be authorised? What public servants would spend $30m without being clear about the authority for it?
So many questions, so few answers.