Class action against Daniel Andrews’ government is given the green light 

A class action against the Victorian government over its disastrous hotel quarantine program has been given the green light. 

Brought by Victorian businesses, the aim of the action is to force the government to cover losses suffered by them during the state’s July 2020 lockdown. 

The lockdown, the state’s second, was triggered after the government’s quarantine hotels failed to contain Covid infections. 

An inquiry later found poor health controls were in place at the hotels and the program was responsible for the deaths of 768 people and 18,000 infections.

On Friday, Justice John Dixon dismissed the State of Victoria’s application to dismiss the suit.  

Lawyer Damian Scattini from Quinn Emanuel, who is leading the class action, said the ruling was an important win for business owners.

‘When the Victorian government decided to run a mandatory hotel quarantine program, it took on a duty to ensure it was managed properly,’ Mr Scattini said, as reported by the Herald-Sun.

‘If the hotel quarantine program had been handled competently by the people in charge, there would not have been a second lockdown.

‘That lockdown decimated businesses and, through this class action, we are giving business owners a way to get back some of what they lost.’

He added: ‘The class action relates to tens of thousands of businesses that provided goods or services to the public from bricks and mortar premises in Victoria and suffered financial loss because of Victoria’s second lockdown.’

The businesses are seeking damages after Covid escaped from the Rydges and Stamford Plaza hotels, leading to stage 3 and 4 restrictions.

They claimed a family of four detained at the Rydges infected a hotel worker and private security staff. 

An inquiry later found poor health controls were in place at the hotels and the program was responsible for the deaths of 768 people and 18,000 infections (pictured, a traveller exits a Skybus upon arriving to the Intercontinental quarantine hotel in Melbourne in April, 2021

The infected did not wear masks or practice hand hygiene, with the family’s illness later epidemiologically linked to eight workers and nine of their contacts.

In early June at the Stamford Plaza, it’s claimed a traveller and a couple spread the virus to security guards.

It then spread to 26 workers, a nurse and 19 other contacts. 

The businesses bringing the class action say that, by mid-August in 2020, genomic sequencing showed clustering of about 75 per cent of community infections with the quarantine hotel infections.

They say that ‘had the (State of Victoria) conducted themselves prudently to the appropriate standard, transmission at each hotel would not have occurred’.

In September 2021, the health and safety watchdog charged Victoria’s health department with dozens of breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 

The class action ruling is the latest blow against the state government’s hotel quarantine programme. 

In September 2021, the health and safety watchdog charged Victoria’s health department with dozens of breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. 

WorkSafe said the Department of Health failed to provide a safe working environment for employees and non-employees and put them at risk of Covid.

The department is facing up to $95m in fines over its alleged breaches of the Act.

Melburnians were released from their sixth lockdown on October 21 last year, with the state’s long lockdowns leading to Mr Andrews being dubbed ‘Dictator Dan’.

Since then, four of Victoria’s most senior government ministers have stepped down from their portfolios leading up to the next election on November 26.

Those ministers are former Deputy Premier and Education Minister James Merlino, Health Minister Martin Foley, Police Minister Lisa Neville and Sports Minister Martin Pakula.

Each of them played important roles in enforcing the closure of Victoria for 262 days.