With the fourth Covid lockdown in Victoria we’re being consistently asked where we are at with our campaign to prosecute the Victorian government over the quarantine OHS breaches.
Quite simply we are currently in a holding pattern. WorkSafe Victoria must reply to our original 29 September 2020 letter by 29 June this year. That’s WorkSafe’s deadline.
WorkSafe must have initiated prosecutions by 29 June or explain to us in detail why not. They must do that on each of the 142 breaches of the Act we have alleged. If WorkSafe do not prosecute, we can and will trigger steps requiring referral to the Director of Public Prosecutions. This is explained in our letter to WorkSafe of today.
In addition, we’ve done an analysis of why Victoria is in trouble.
It’s quite startling to realise that, even before this lockdown, Victorians have suffered some 160 days in lockdown over about the last 450 days. That’s 35 per cent of days spent in lockdown since March last year. 801 of the 910 tragic Covid deaths across Australia (88 per cent) have been in Victoria.
We say that the sad fact is that Victoria has become a corrupt state where the normal processes of a professional public service have been rorted. Melbourne, in particular, is run by a new ‘Establishment’.
It’s a corrupt money-making rort where corrupt tendering processes have infected even the Health Department. What was witnessed in the hotel quarantine program was the neutering of professional public servants. This resulted in a near-complete breakdown in control systems, accountability and transparency.
On current evidence, the mess being made of Covid management in Victoria is set to continue. At the core of the reason for this is the refusal of the Victorian government to confront its problems. The Victorian WorkSafe Authority has the power to act. Prosecutions will force change. That’s why we are continuing and will continue with our campaign
Our longer analysis is here.