Sky News host Peta Credlin says the story of how the Andrews government went it alone using nothing much more than private security guards to run hotel quarantine continues to get “murkier and more unorthodox”.
Credlin has trawled through the evidence submitted to the hotel quarantine inquiry in an attempt to finally ascertain who made the fateful decision to use private security guards.
On Tuesday Credlin uncovered how security firm Unified Security CEO David Millward sent an email to employees on March 27 at midday to complete the federal government’s COVID training by 2:30pm.
On that day, National Cabinet met to discuss hotel quarantine, which was eventually announced by the prime minister at 2:30. Unified Security – without being on the preferred tenders list – was given a $30 million three-month contract later that night to start immediately.
Credlin outlined how Unified Security was given the job as she found in evidence a secret WhatsApp group called ‘Working with the Vic A Team’ which at 10:30pm featured a message that confirmed the firm for the job.
“We can't see what was said that made Unified so critical to include - against all the Victorian Government rules - because that's been redacted from evidence, but it must have been good because here's the response – ‘OK, Unified are in,’” said Credlin.
“Clearly someone on that Friday, at that time, was close enough to Millward to have his private mobile. “Who is the person, why did they have this mobile number and did they use at any time earlier in the day – earlier in the day – when they knew, via Chris Eccles, what was coming out of the National Cabinet meeting?”