A shambolic end to a deplorable episode that cost more than 700 lives

2 weeks ago 12

The illness of WorkSafe Victoria’s pursuit of the Health Department implicit the government’s edifice quarantine programme provides a fittingly shambolic extremity to a lamentable nonaccomplishment of nationalist medication and accountability.

It is 4 years, astir to the day, that a household of 4 infected with COVID-19 flew into Melbourne Airport from Bangladesh, checked into the Rydges Hotel connected Swanston and seeded a 2nd question epidemic that plunged the authorities into lockdown and killed astir 800 people.

The Rydges Hotel successful Carlton successful April 2020.

It is present good established that nary of this was the responsibility of the family, the information guards liable for keeping them successful their rooms, edifice unit oregon the nationalist wellness officials tasked with moving a fatally ill-conceived program.

These are radical who, if the WorkSafe prosecution had reached a verdict, mightiness person received a belated token of justice.

Instead, determination volition beryllium nary proceedings and nary transgression uncovering of responsibility against the Department of Health oregon anyone else.

The reasons for this, astatine archetypal blush, are elemental enough.

Three weeks ago, Victorian Country Court Judge Andrew Palmer delivered a pre-trial ruling that meant WorkSafe could not see arsenic grounds successful its lawsuit the statements provided by Department of Health officials to an earlier committee of enquiry into the edifice quarantine program.

This ruling is based connected a wide proviso successful Victorian instrumentality that enables radical to look arsenic witnesses astatine royal commissions oregon earlier different inquiries without fearing that the accusation they supply volition beryllium utilized against them successful different proceedings.

It is nary method loophole but alternatively an indispensable safeguard that helps nationalist inquiries get to the bottommost of contentious issues.

In this case, WorkSafe wanted to usage arsenic grounds against the Department of Health statements and grounds by 10 section employees, prepared with the assistance of departmental lawyers and elder managers, for the 2020 inquiry chaired by Jennifer Coate into the failings of edifice quarantine.

Citing well-established precedents, the justice ruled nary dice.

Victoria’s Office of Public Prosecutions, the different bureau liable for bringing this case, decided that without this evidence, the lawsuit was doomed to fail.

This is wherever the occurrence gets a small murky.

WorkSafe should person anticipated that immoderate transgression prosecution relying connected statements provided to a nationalist enquiry could tally into ineligible trouble. This occupation could person been avoided had WorkSafe obtained its ain statements from the Health Department witnesses.

As Palmer noted successful his ruling, WorkSafe has coercive powers nether the Occupational Health and Safety Act that it could person utilized for this purpose. It had the powerfulness and surely the clip to bash the enactment needed to physique a transgression case. It appears to person failed to bash so.

The OPP besides has immoderate explaining to do. Instead of abandoning the lawsuit against the Department of Health erstwhile the justice handed down his ruling, it could person sought a enactment of prosecution and fixed WorkSafe an accidental to usage its investigative powers to capable successful the evidentiary gaps.

A spokesperson for the OPP declined to reply questions from this masthead astir erstwhile it archetypal provided proposal to WorkSafe Victoria astir the hazard of relying connected statements tendered to the Coate enquiry and wherefore WorkSafe did not effort to unafraid its ain grounds from the Department of Health witnesses.

A lawyer progressive successful the Coate inquiry, speaking confidentially to sermon legally delicate matters, described the concatenation of decisions surrounding the WorkSafe prosecution arsenic “absolutely shameless”.

The Department of Health welcomed the determination to wantonness the lawsuit against it and, fixed the reluctance of galore Victorians to revisit immoderate of the much troubling episodes of our pandemic years, the determination is improbable to provoke a nationalist outcry.

The two-year statute of limitations connected alleged transgression breaches of Victoria’s workplace wellness and information laws has expired. This means that, adjacent if WorkSafe wanted to rebuild its case, it would necessitate peculiar dispensation from the OPP to exhume its prosecution.