Victoria's hotel quarantine inquiry no excuse to dodge questions, judge says

The inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine system for returned travellers that may be the source for the second wave of coronavirus cases in the state has had its reporting date delayed by six weeks as a result of the stage-four restrictions imposed on Melbourne.

Since calling the inquiry in June, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has in his daily press conferences repeatedly declined to answer questions about hotel quarantine, saying it was not appropriate for him to answer given the inquiry.

But the head of the inquiry, the former judge Jennifer Coate, indicated on Wednesday that because the inquiry was not a court, there was nothing preventing people who have information about hotel quarantine from speaking publicly outside it.

“There is no general restriction or prohibition, which would prevent a person from commenting publicly or answering questions to which they know the answers on matters which are the subject of examination by [this inquiry],” Coate said.

Related: Victoria records Australia's worst day of Covid-19 with 15 deaths and 725 new cases

A similar Tasmanian inquiry into a Covid-19 outbreak in North West hospital opted for an interim report, which was delivered 17 days after the hospital closed in April.

The hotel quarantine inquiry was due to hear from its first witnesses on Thursday but Coate announced in a special hearing on Wednesday that the first hearing would be delayed by 11 days due to the extra work required to comply with stage-four restrictions.

“From that time, we will conduct the remainder of the public hearings of the inquiry, in a completely remote virtual hearing room, so as to keep everyone safe and comply with stage-four restrictions as we understand them,” Coate said.

“And most critically, not be responsible for exposing any of our workforce support staff, or those who are working in this building, to support us, to the risks expose them to the risks of these highly infectious and dangerous fires that continues to spread daily through our community.”

The hearing will now be delayed until 17 and 18 August, looking at Covid-19, infection control, epidemiology and contact tracing, and genomic testing, with infectious disease experts and epidemiologists professors Lindsay Grayson, Ben Howden, and Dr Charles Alpren.

The remainder of the hearings – when government officials, returned travellers, ministers, hotel operators and security companies could be called – will follow after that.

Coate said the inquiry had received 106,000 pages of documents, 87,000 of which had been uploaded to its document management system. She noted that many of those called upon to provide evidence had not been able to meet the short deadlines provided, or had claimed confidentiality over the documents which would need to be assessed by the inquiry.

Given the issues with managing all the documentation, and the need for staff to work remotely, Coate said she had writtenAndrews and had been granted a six-week extension in reporting back to the government, from 25 September to 6 November.

“I am acutely aware, as are all those assisting me, of the community’s need to have a thorough understanding of what has happened in the hotel quarantine program, and the ramifications,” she said. “I acknowledge this extra time for reporting will cause frustration and distress.”