And so a Minister for Health

has resigned in the neighbouring state.

This is the Downunder state which has the really serious problem with Covid19. It is not the time for any Minister in the parliament to be resigning, let alone the one responsible for health.

I was sent some information yesterday. It came from a reputable source. I was asked to comment on how the sender might respond without breaching laws relating to other issues. 

What they had been asked to comment is at the heart of the Covid19 problem in their state. This is the issue of the use of private security to enforce hotel quarantine among returning travellers. It is the subject of an inquiry right now. The last of the "evidence" was presented on Friday. I don't envy the person writing the report because the collective amnesia among those who should know is extraordinary. 

One thing however is certain. The Minister for Health should not have resigned. It is not possible to see how she could have the sole responsibility for signing off on the contract that employed the security guards.

There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that spending $30m in circumstances like this is never made by just one person.  There are procedures which should always be followed. All state governments have preferred suppliers within their own states. Going outside the state requires the approval of more than one individual. With a contract worth $30m the Premier must have been involved.

I never understood why a private security firm was given the job. It should have been carried out by the police. If they did not have the personnel then defence personnel should have been given the necessary authority to do the task and been deployed to do it. It was never a job for a private security firm.

I made some inquiries about the firm involved though - and I had some interesting answers. This was, as I was beginning to suspect, about politics and not about people. The firm was not state based and it has a very poor financial track record. It also has other issues. The firm did not have the personnel to do the job. They had to hire people. Those people were not trained. The only "training" people received was a few hours of "cultural awareness" training - cultural awareness in no way related to those entering quarantine.

So people in quarantine were being overseen by others who had no training to do the job. Most of them would have had no idea how to do the job. They were not trained to keep their distance. They were not provided with full PPE. They did not have the necessary skills to handle situations. The work would, if properly carried out, been boring in the extreme.

Is it any wonder that these so-called security personnel slept on the job, played on their mobile phones, wandered off at times and - above all else - sometimes got too friendly? They got too close. It was only a matter of time before someone got Covid19, took it home and then out into the community.

The Minister for Health should have asked, "Are they trained to do the job?" Even if she had though it is likely that she would have been told that this was how those in quarantine were going to be policed. It is unlikely she could have changed the course of events. The politics of employing a firm which claims to be an "indigenous" one would have been seen as more important than any concerns she might have raised. She would have been accused of discrimination and racial bias. 

Instead almost 800 mostly older people have now lost their lives in a situation which could have been avoided. The mental health, physical and economic well being of the community was seen as less important than the politics of offering a contract to an "indigenous" firm.

The person who sent me the information is an indigenous person, a visibly indigenous person for whom I have the greatest respect. He is, rightly, concerned that this situation is not going to make it easier for indigenous people to obtain employment. It is going to make it more difficult, much more difficult. His anguish was clear.

 "What can we do Cat? I despair." 

I despair too.