Covid-19

Our efforts to require WorkSafe to prosecute Victorian government agencies and individuals over the 2020 hotel quarantine disaster and 801 deaths bore fruit in late September (7 weeks ago).

WorkSafe announced that it is prosecuting the Department of Health!  This prosecution demonstrates that our one-year-plus campaign was totally correct. Without our campaign the prosecution would almost certainly not be occurring.

But WorkSafe claims it doesn’t need to do anything else. It is refusing to prosecute responsible individuals, such as the Victorian Premier.

We say WorkSafe has a legal obligation to take the next steps. It must refer the investigations to the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions. WorkSafe refuses. It has said to us “…WorkSafe is not required to provide reasons …” and told us that we “…may wish to seek independent legal advice…”  We will soon make this and other correspondence public.

Court action

We now have no option but to take WorkSafe to Court. We have organised a top legal team. The legal strategy is set. But let’s be clear. This will be a hard and expensive legal battle. The cost will be huge in legal fees. Now we must raise the money.

We need your $ contribution.

Thanks to the huge support from everyone so far. But this is now the BIG game. Every $ is important. Please let your friends know.

Contribute as a campaign member here. Contact me if you’d like to discuss making a contribution: 0412 393 692

Legal strategy

Our legal strategy and course of action has been carefully thought through. Here’s a briefing on the legal strategy. It explains our specific legal options before the Courts.

What’s the end result?

We’re simply wanting WorkSafe to do its job. That is, to investigate the following individuals, at least, and prosecute as and where required:

Daniel Andrews, The Premier of Victoria
Jenny Mikakos, The former Health Minister
Kym Peake, Secretary for Health and Human Services
Melissa Skilbeck, DHHS, Deputy Secretary, Regulation, Health Protection and Emergency Management
Andrea Spiteri, DHHS, Executive Director, Emergency Management
Jason Helps, DHHS, Deputy Director, Emergency Management
Brett Sutton, Chief Health Officer
Annaliese van Dieman, Deputy Chief Health Officer
Michelle Giles, Deputy Public Health Commander
Simon Crouch, DHHS, Senior Medical Adviser, Acting Deputy Chief Health Officer
Noel Cleaves, DHHS, Manager Environmental Health, Regulation and Compliance

This is about justice and the rule of law. No-one is or should be above the law.

Contribute as a campaign member here.

The Victorian hotel quarantine disaster of 2020 lead to 801 deaths, mostly in aged care homes. The Victorian government blamed those aged care deaths on the Commonwealth. ‘It’s not our fault’ was the message from the Victorian Premier’s media-manipulation team.  But now the facts and truth are coming out.

This week a coronial inquest into the 50 deaths at St Basil’s aged care home began. The evidence from just the opening day is startling.

According to media coverage a report from an independent expert in disaster and emergency health said that a lack of coordination between state and federal health departments was a “root cause of the tragedy at St Basil’s”. This shows a shared responsibility between the Victorian and Commonwealth departments.

But there were not large numbers of aged care deaths in other states. So why Victoria?

The coronial inquest gives a better understanding. The inquest heard that Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, ordered the removal of St Basil’s staff.  Victoria’s health department, Commonwealth health officials and local medical staffed called this decision a “shocking idea”.

The head lawyer assisting the coroner said that this decision by Brett Sutton was made “…despite all present apparently being aware of a risk that the replacement workforce may be inadequate to meet the statutory care standards”.  And this is what happened.

The new workforce, hastily bought in, were understaffed, not familiar with the patients’ needs and overwhelmed. The situation is described as “shocking” with staff in tears, “… positive and negative patients mingling freely, PPE not being cleared…” and more. The consequence was the deaths.

The head lawyer said the staff “…were operating within a wholly inadequate governance and management structure.”

This is consistent with the finding of the Coate Inquiry into the 2020 Hotel Quarantine disaster where the “…disaster that tragically came to be…” was caused by “…lack of proper leadership and oversight…”

That is, it was the inept, incompetent, chaotic management shambles by the Victorian government that resulted in the virus escaping the quarantine hotels. The coroner’s inquiry is pointing to the same managerial incompetence resulting in the deaths at St Basil’s aged care home. The Victorian government was intimately involved at each step. Brett Sutton was a top, key decision-maker at each step.

WorkSafe Victoria is prosecuting the Victorian Health Department over the quarantine disaster. They are not prosecuting any individuals. We continue our push to require WorkSafe to prosecute responsible individuals. WorkSafe’s prosecution of the Health Department demonstrates that our 18-month campaign (to date) is valid.

We are in deep strategic discussions with lawyers. ‘Robust’ correspondence with WorkSafe continues. We hope to let you know of next steps in the near future.

It’s a couple of weeks since we updated you on the Not Above The Law campaign over the 801 Victorian Hotel Quarantine deaths in 2020. Here’s some info.

Prosecution of Health

You may likely be aware that, on Wednesday 29 September, WorkSafe announced that it is prosecuting the Department of Health (but not responsible individuals). The announcement caused a storm of media coverage.

29 September was one year to the day that we sent our 131 application; the legal trigger that required WorkSafe to investigate with a view to prosecuting. The prosecution totally validates our campaign, demonstrating the correctness of both the issue and our pressure activity. The major media channels now view our campaign as significantly serious.

Magistrate hearing: Last Friday 22 October was the first Court hearing, a procedural matter where the date was set for the start of the serious legal process (10 March 2022).

Plead guilty? There is speculation that Health may plead guilty and pay a ‘round robin’ fine – that is, the government fines itself which means (effectively) no fine. The media have been on to this with commentary viewing this as a ‘con’.

Next stage – Our campaign focus – prosecute individuals

Our campaign is now focused on pushing heavily for prosecution of the responsible individuals – that is, the Premier, Minister and government officials. This doesn’t mean that we say they are guilty, but rather that the evidence requires prosecution. I explained this in a 3AW radio interview (6 minutes) on 22 October:

TV advert #2 (30 seconds): Following the Health prosecution announcement, we have relaunched our TV advert on social media. See the refocused ad here. This is being supported by a hard-hitting on-line social media campaign (on Facebook & Google).

Radio adverts (30 seconds): A new radio advert is running this week on Melbourne 3AW, 7am to 10am with several repeats in each time slot:

 NATL website: A dedicated Not Above The Law website was launched mid-September which has had strong traffic. Here’s the site: https://notabovethelaw.com.au/

Legal campaign

To date we’ve had a big impact without needing court action. There have been 38 pieces of correspondence between Self-Employed Australia and WorkSafe over the last year. In addition, during September we wrote to the Attorney-General, Shadow Attorney-General, WorkSafe Minister, Shadow WorkSafe Minister, Ombudsman and the Solicitor-General. There has been careful legal guidance at every step. See information here.

We anticipate news about next steps in the near future.

What does the Covid modelling say?

You might be interested in some tracking of the predictions about the spread of Covid-19 since the last Victorian heavy lockdown started. The Table below shows what the Burnet Institute predicted would be the Covid impact during the heavy lockdown.

They said that (see page 7, Table 4, of their document)

• The number of infections would peak at 4,543 per day.
  The actual peak so far is 2,297.

• Hospital demand would peak at 3,150 per day.
  The actual peak so far is 851.

• ICU demand would peak at 706 per day.
  The actual peak so far is 163.

Ummmm?

You’ll likely be aware that last Wednesday (29 September) WorkSafe Victoria announced that it is prosecuting the Victorian Health Department for work safety breaches over the hotel quarantine disaster of 2020. The only problem is it is not going to prosecute any individuals.

It’s like prosecuting a gun for murder but not prosecuting the person who pulled the trigger. It’s plain dumb. But it’s also an affront to the rule of law in a supposedly civilised society. It also exposes WorkSafe as being two-faced.

On Monday, for example, after a WorkSafe prosecution, the operator of a skating rink was personally convicted and fined over unsafe levels of carbon monoxide. So where are the individuals responsible for the hotel quarantine disaster? Why isn’t the same standard applied? No-one should be above the law.

We think that the Health Department will likely plead guilty, pay a fine and there will be no trial. Individuals would walk away! This scenario could look like a legal ‘checkmate’ by WorkSafe. In other words, WorkSafe is looking to close down our campaign to prosecute 26 other government entities and individuals for the hotel quarantine mess that led to 801 deaths.

So what’s happened?

Our campaign is only just warming up.

You’ve seen our TV ad? There’s more to come!

WorkSafe is prosecuting small businesses for not having Covid plans. But when it comes to the Victorian government, WorkSafe’s approach looks highly suspect. Why is it ignoring the plain, published evidence supporting the case for the prosecution? Remember the Coate Inquiry provided the evidence. We have analysed the evidence. The case to prosecute is starkly clear.

What we have on our side is facts, truth and the need for justice in a country where the rule of law is supposed to apply. We’re not like communist China, or at least we’re not supposed to be.

The thing is, it’s necessary to campaign hard to ensure that the rule of law is a living reality and not some fictional legal fairy tale. When a key institution that’s supposed to apply the rule of law, flouts the rule of law, it’s essential that we not give up.

Huge thanks to the expanding ‘army’ of supporters who are backing the campaign and making it possible.

If you’ve been following our Not Above the Law campaign, you’ll likely be aware of a BIG development yesterday. Early in the afternoon WorkSafe Victoria announced that it is prosecuting the Victorian Department of Health over the hotel quarantine disaster of 2020.

This triggered a media storm with coverage across the nation. After I went into a deep-dive analysis with our lawyers, I then spent all afternoon doing media interviews – ABC (radio, TV, print), SkyNews, Herald Sun, 3AW radio and others. Thanks to everyone for the huge number of emails and texts. Pardon me for not responding. I thought it best to do so now.

Here is some background information:

Here’s a key issue:

How will we succeed?  I keep being asked, ‘how will we get WorkSafe to undertake prosecution of individuals’? My reply is ‘by doing what we have been doing’. This is a people movement. We must, and will keep delivering analysis and messaging about the need for the prosecution of Departments and individuals. We have confidence in the voice of the people!

And you, our SEA members, are at the core of this. The campaign has taken us this far in getting yesterday’s breakthrough. But it’s only happened because of your support — people contributing $5 and up, putting in time and effort (contacting the Ombudsman, etc) and more.

Our huge thanks. We should all be pleased. But there’s still a lot more to be done!

Tonight we launch our television advertising campaign. The theme is simple. ‘WorkSafe Must Prosecute’. Watch Channel Nine’s evening news at 6pm in Victoria.

Here’s the advert.

Here are images from the advert:

The ad campaign has been a long time in preparation and only possible because of significant $ support from large numbers of SEA members. Our BIG thanks.

The television ads are being supported by a major social media campaign featuring the ad. And we’re running community A-Frame mini-billboard ads across some 50 sites in Victoria.

The campaign at this stage is planned to run for 3 weeks.

With WorkSafe Victoria continuing to refuse to do the job it is required to do we have to bring as much community pressure to bear as is possible. The rule of law must apply, no matter what exalted position an individual or organisation commands.

Remember our call for prosecution is based on evidence from the Coate Inquiry into the Victorian Hotel Quarantine disaster in 2020. Here’s our major analysis: The Case For The Prosecution.

Our campaign will continue to develop. We are not stopping. Rather we are just warming up.

In a telling development yesterday, reports from an industry trade magazine describe how WorkSafe Victoria is investigating a business over the death of a worker from Covid-19.  The WorkSafe move comes after the Australian Services Union “…called for an investigation…”

The ASU said that it will be “…supporting a WorkSafe investigation…” and “… will hold all employers accountable…”

There’s a telling tale here of what could be called the ‘Victorian comrade racket’. The union comrades demand. The ‘justice’ institutions jump! It’s selective! Businesses (of any size) are taken to be ‘bad’ and must be punished. But when it comes to holding government itself responsible, under exactly the same laws, it’s all very ‘complex’ and hard!

It’s now 18 months since the Victorian hotel quarantine disaster first started (March 2020). WorkSafe took up to 4 months before it says it started investigating the Victorian government for OHS breaches. It’s nearly 12 months since we wrote to WorkSafe requiring it to investigate. And it’s now 11 weeks since WorkSafe was required under its own statute obligations to give to the Director of Public Prosecutions its investigation material into the hotel quarantine disaster. Delay. Delay. Delay! Where is justice?

Here’s what the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act says:

In this case Self-Employed Australia is ‘the person’. WorkSafe has said it is continuing to investigate. That is, it is not prosecuting. Under the plain reading of the Act, WorkSafe “…must refer the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions if the person requests (in writing)…” We have made that written request. On a common sense reading of the Act, WorkSafe has not done what it is legally required to do for 11 weeks.

We find it deeply concerning that WorkSafe is ignoring what seems to us to be its legal obligation. But we are active in spite of this delay, delay, delay.

Our campaign for justice for 801 deaths will not stop.

We give considerable detail on our efforts here including our 20,000-word analysis The Case For The Prosecution drawn from the Coate Inquiry evidence.

And thanks to the huge support from people that keeps coming in. It is  most encouraging when people contribute even $10 as a member to the campaign. It’s this support (lots of it) that keeps us going.